January 1, 2007, NEWARK, NJ ~~ Children who suffer physical abuse or neglect are more likely to develop a major depressive disorder (MDD) in young adulthood, new research has found.
Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, and the Bureau of Evaluation and Research, Office of Children and Family Services in Rensselaer, New York, said few studies have looked at the relationship between abuse or neglect in adulthood and depression in adulthood. They studied adults with an average age of 28.7 years with substantiated cases of physical or sexual abuse or neglect as children, compared them with adults who were not abused or neglected as children.
The researchers found that physical abuse or neglect evaluated the risk of developing a MDD in young adulthood, but childhood sexual abuse did not.
They concluded that the results support the need for health-care professionals to increase efforts to detect and treat depression in physically abused or neglected children.
The study, which appeared in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, was entitled “A prospective investigation of major depressive disorder and comorbidity in abused and neglected children grown up.”
Source: BP Canada Magazine (Spring 2007)
2 comments:
I guess it would have been a major surprise, had the survey found the opposite result. Sadly, despite all the lip-service, and best of intention, there is never the resources or funding for any meaningful early intervention, in this "caring" society of ours. WAKE UP WORLD, let's look out for our kids, eh? (Caught me on a sore point there, sorry.)
shrink...whoo hoo! a sore point...I was turning red with anger with every key I typed for this article. I have known too many abused children (sexually and emotionally) that are now adults during my hospital stays. Most of these wonderful people's lives would have turned in a different direction had it not been for an ugly hand. Although they have moved on with their lives, that scar remains and sadly always will.
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