Center for Healthy Aging, College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
Department of Sociology, Institute on Aging, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2019 Jun 14;74(5):858-868. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gby076.
Childhood abuse has long-term negative effects on adult psychological well-being. This study examined whether and how adults with a history of childhood abuse may experience poor psychological functioning partly due to aspects of current family relationships.
We estimated multilevel mediation models using 3 waves of longitudinal data from 3,487 participants in the study of Midlife Development in the United States. Outcomes measured included negative affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being. We included aspects of family relationships as mediators: perceived support, perceived strain, frequency of contact, and hours of providing instrumental and emotional support.
Multilevel mediation models showed that childhood verbal and physical abuse negatively affected diverse aspects of family relationships in later adulthood (i.e., less perceived support, more perceived strain, less frequent contact, and fewer hours of providing instrumental support). We also found that less perceived support and more family strain significantly mediated the associations between childhood abuse and all 3 psychological functioning outcomes.
Childhood abuse appears to hinder perceived availability of family support in adulthood, which may undermine the psychological functioning of adults with a history of childhood abuse. To improve their psychological health, interventions should focus on facilitating supportive and functional family relationships.
儿童期虐待对成年人的心理健康有长期的负面影响。本研究旨在探讨有儿童期虐待史的成年人是否以及如何因当前家庭关系的某些方面而经历较差的心理功能。
我们使用来自美国中年发展研究的 3487 名参与者的 3 波纵向数据，估计了多层次中介模型。测量的结果包括负性情绪、生活满意度和心理幸福感。我们将家庭关系的各个方面作为中介变量纳入其中：感知支持、感知紧张、接触频率以及提供工具性和情感支持的时间。
多层次中介模型表明，儿童期言语和身体虐待对成年后期的家庭关系的各个方面都有负面影响（即感知支持减少、感知紧张增加、接触频率减少以及提供工具性支持的时间减少）。我们还发现，感知支持减少和家庭紧张增加显著中介了儿童期虐待与所有 3 种心理功能结果之间的关联。
儿童期虐待似乎阻碍了成年人对家庭支持的感知可用性，这可能会破坏有儿童期虐待史的成年人的心理功能。为了改善他们的心理健康，干预措施应侧重于促进支持性和功能性的家庭关系。
