School of Child and Family Sciences, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA.
College of Education, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2021 Nov 15;76(10):2112-2120. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbab095.
Childhood abuse is positively associated with adult mental health problems and adult interpersonal relationships have been previously suggested to be a mediator. The role of marital partners, however, is less well understood. The current study will investigate marital quality as a mediator linking childhood abuse and positive and negative affective symptoms.
The current study utilized 3 waves of data from the Midlife Development in the United States. Using a sample of 1,104 married adults (95.4% White), structural equation modeling examined the mediating effect of marital quality linking childhood abuse to positive and negative affective symptoms over a 20-year period.
Structural equation modeling revealed that childhood abuse was inversely associated with marital quality but was not directly associated with positive or negative affective symptoms. Marital quality was positively associated with greater positive affect and negatively associated with lower negative affect over a 9-year period, controlling for prior symptoms. Tests of indirect effects indicate that marital quality mediated the relationship between childhood abuse to both positive and negative affective symptoms, fully accounting for the association.
It appears that childhood abuse impacts the quality of adults' marriages, which may have significant implications for both positive and negative aspects of adult mental health. Marriages may be an important factor in understanding mental health in midlife and older adults among adults who were abused. Interventions should target the quality of adult marriages, and focusing on marital support, strain, and disagreement may be particularly effective.
童年虐待与成年心理健康问题呈正相关，并且先前有人提出，成人的人际关系是其中的一个中介因素。然而，婚姻伴侣的作用却知之甚少。本研究将调查婚姻质量作为一个中介因素，将童年虐待与积极和消极的情感症状联系起来。
本研究利用了美国中年发展的 3 波数据。采用了 1104 对已婚成年人（95.4%为白人）的样本，结构方程模型检验了童年虐待通过婚姻质量对积极和消极情感症状的中介效应，研究时间跨度为 20 年。
结构方程模型显示，童年虐待与婚姻质量呈负相关，但与积极或消极情感症状没有直接关联。在控制了先前的症状后，婚姻质量与 9 年内更大的积极情感呈正相关，与更低的消极情感呈负相关。间接效应检验表明，婚姻质量中介了童年虐待与积极和消极情感症状之间的关系，完全解释了这种关联。
似乎童年虐待会影响成年人婚姻的质量，这对成年人心理健康的积极和消极方面都有重大影响。对于在成年期遭受虐待的成年人来说，婚姻可能是理解中年和老年心理健康的一个重要因素。干预措施应该针对成年人婚姻的质量，关注婚姻支持、压力和分歧可能特别有效。
