Unit of Psychotraumatology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Unit of Psychotraumatology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Child Abuse Negl. 2020 Sep;107:104558. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104558. Epub 2020 Jun 16.
Cumulative childhood trauma predicts mental health problems in children, mediated by emotion regulation (ER). To assess trauma history and mental health in children, different informants may be addressed, assessing data from different perspectives. Despite differences between child- and caregiver-reports as robust finding in child psychology, it remains unclear to which extent perspective matters when examining these variables and related associations.
The current study was set to (1) examine whether ER mediates the relationship between cumulative childhood trauma and mental health problems in children, (2) test whether results differ with examined perspective, and (3) investigate if meaningful patterns of child-caregiver-reported discrepancies can be identified.
Data were collected from 145 children living in foster care by child- and caregiver-reports using standardized measures to assess trauma history (CTQ), ER (FEEL-KJ), and mental health problems (CBCL). Mediation and latent profile analysis were calculated.
Mediation analysis identified ER as mediator for internalizing and externalizing mental health problems. Using data from different perspectives, mediation models differed considerably regarding significance, direction, and magnitude of effects. Using latent profile analysis, meaningful patterns of child-caregiver-reported discrepancies were identified and associated with children's sociodemographic and psychopathological characteristics.
Adaptive and maladaptive ER distinctively mediate the relationship between cumulative childhood trauma and mental health problems in children. Perspective matters when examining these variables and child- and caregiver-reports are not interchangeable. Practitioners and researchers should be aware of inherent limitations when using data from distinct perspectives. Informant discrepancies can carry meaning and should not be ignored, but examined and interpreted instead.
累积性儿童创伤通过情绪调节（ER）预测儿童的心理健康问题。为了评估儿童的创伤史和心理健康状况，可以由不同的知情者进行评估，从不同的角度评估数据。尽管儿童和照顾者报告之间的差异是儿童心理学中的一个强有力的发现，但在检查这些变量及其相关关联时，视角的重要性仍不清楚。
本研究旨在：（1）检验 ER 是否在累积性儿童创伤与儿童心理健康问题之间起中介作用；（2）检验不同的观察视角是否会导致结果不同；（3）调查是否可以识别出有意义的儿童与照顾者报告差异模式。
通过儿童和照顾者报告，使用标准化的量表，对 145 名寄养儿童的创伤史（CTQ）、ER（FEEL-KJ）和心理健康问题（CBCL）进行了评估。计算了中介和潜在剖面分析。
中介分析确定 ER 是内化和外化心理健康问题的中介。使用不同的视角，中介模型在显著性、方向和效应大小方面存在显著差异。使用潜在剖面分析，识别出有意义的儿童与照顾者报告差异模式，并与儿童的社会人口学和心理病理学特征相关。
适应性和不适应性 ER 分别在累积性儿童创伤与儿童心理健康问题之间起中介作用。在检查这些变量时，视角很重要，儿童和照顾者报告不能互换。从业者和研究人员在使用不同视角的数据时应意识到其内在局限性。知情者的差异可能具有意义，不应被忽视，而应进行检查和解释。
