Kick Lorenz, Schleicher Daniel, Ecker Angelika, Kandsperger Stephanie, Brunner Romuald, Jarvers Irina
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Front Psychiatry. 2024 Jul 1;15:1412229. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1412229. eCollection 2024.
Victims of child abuse have an elevated risk of developing mental health issues later in life. Several variables have been suggested as mediators of this correlation, but little is known about the possible influence of alexithymia. Alexithymia is a sub-clinical personality trait that manifests as difficulties recognizing and verbalizing emotions.
In this study, two separate meta-analyses were conducted using questionnaire data, and Pearson correlations for overall effects were estimated.
The correlation between child abuse and alexithymia showed to be significant ( = .26), as did the correlation between alexithymia and general psychopathology ( = .44). Further analyses revealed no indication for possible publication bias. When investigating differences between various subtypes of child maltreatment, each subtype significantly correlated with alexithymia. Emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect had stronger correlations than physical and sexual abuse.
These results suggest that alexithymia plays a mediating role, at least in part, in the relationship between experiences of child abuse and general psychopathology in adulthood. Therefore, alexithymia may be relevant to further research and deserves attention in the prevention of and therapy for mental health issues in victims of child abuse.
遭受虐待的儿童在日后生活中出现心理健康问题的风险更高。已有若干变量被认为是这种关联的中介因素，但关于述情障碍可能产生的影响却知之甚少。述情障碍是一种亚临床人格特质，表现为难以识别和表达情感。
在本研究中，我们使用问卷数据进行了两项独立的荟萃分析，并估计了总体效应的皮尔逊相关性。
虐待儿童与述情障碍之间的相关性显著（r = 0.26），述情障碍与一般精神病理学之间的相关性也显著（r = 0.44）。进一步分析未发现可能存在发表偏倚的迹象。在调查不同类型儿童虐待之间的差异时，每种类型均与述情障碍显著相关。情感虐待、情感忽视和身体忽视与述情障碍的相关性比身体虐待和性虐待更强。
这些结果表明，述情障碍至少在一定程度上在儿童虐待经历与成年期一般精神病理学之间的关系中起中介作用。因此，述情障碍可能与进一步的研究相关，并且在虐待儿童受害者心理健康问题的预防和治疗中值得关注。
