Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, United States of America.
College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, United States of America.
Child Abuse Negl. 2023 Jun;140:106151. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106151. Epub 2023 Mar 23.
Children who experience maltreatment are at heightened risk for substance use initiation and mental health disorders later in life. Few studies have assessed the relationship between child maltreatment and substance use among Latinx youth.
The current study assessed the potential mediating effect of three aspects of self-regulation (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive) on the association between child maltreatment and substance use and examined whether effects varied depending on maltreatment type and severity.
This study involved a random sample of 504 Latinx youth (52 % girls, 48 % boys) between the ages of 10-12 at the start of the study.
Study hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling and bootstrapped random errors using the R programming language.
Our results indicated that higher levels of child maltreatment predicted higher levels of later substance use, as mediated by emotional and behavioral dysregulation (β = 0.09, p < 0.01), but not cognitive regulation. When separating maltreatment by subtype, we found the mediating effect was present for abuse (β = 0.09, p < 0.01), but not neglect.
Findings contribute to our understanding of potential causal mechanisms for the association between child maltreatment and substance use for Latinx youth.
遭受虐待的儿童在以后的生活中更有可能开始使用物质和出现心理健康障碍。很少有研究评估拉丁裔青年中儿童虐待与物质使用之间的关系。
本研究评估了自我调节的三个方面（情绪、行为和认知）对儿童虐待与物质使用之间关联的潜在中介作用，并检验了这些影响是否因虐待类型和严重程度而异。
本研究涉及研究开始时年龄在 10-12 岁之间的 504 名拉丁裔青年（52%为女孩，48%为男孩）的随机样本。
通过结构方程模型和使用 R 编程语言进行的bootstrap 随机误差检验了研究假设。
我们的结果表明，较高水平的儿童虐待通过情绪和行为失调（β=0.09，p<0.01），而不是认知调节，预测了以后更高水平的物质使用，这是一个中介作用。当按亚型分离虐待时，我们发现这种中介作用在虐待（β=0.09，p<0.01）中存在，但在忽视中不存在。
这些发现有助于我们理解拉丁裔青年中儿童虐待与物质使用之间关联的潜在因果机制。
