Childhood Family Violence and Adult Recurrent Depression

1994/03/01 by Ronald C. Kessler, William J. Magee, William Magee · 205 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Affect (linguistics) #Child Abuse and Trauma #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Clinical psychology #Depression (economics) #Developmental psychology #Health disparities and outcomes #Injury prevention #Interpersonal communication #Interpersonal relationship #Medical emergency #Medicine #Poison control #Population #Psychiatry #Psychology #Suicide prevention #Young adult

paper · doi:10.2307/2137332

published in Journal of Health and Social Behavior 35(1), 13 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 1994/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Although previous research has shown that childhood adversity has long-term effects on adult depression, little is known about the causal pathways involved in these effects. In this report data from a two-wave longitudinal survey of the U.S. household population are used to study these pathways as they affect the association between childhood family violence and adult recurrence of depression. We focus on recurrence of depression because most episodes of clinically significant depression in adulthood occur to persons with a history of depression. We find that chronic interpersonal stress in adulthood mediates the effect of childhood family violence on recurrence of depression, and that childhood family violence modifies the effect of chronic adult interpersonal stress on recurrence of depression. Furthermore, in the absence of chronic adult interpersonal stress there is no association between childhood family violence and adult recurrence of depression.

Citations

• Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being.

Cited by

• Childhood physical maltreatment, perceived social isolation, and internalizing symptoms: a longitudinal, three-wave, population-based study
• Later Abortions and Mental Health: Psychological Experiences of Women Having Later Abortions—A Critical Review of Research
• The Social Context of Mental Illness and Violence
• Violence against women
• Identifying perinatal risk factors for infant maltreatment: an ecological approach. [europepmc]
• Adverse childhood experiences and mental health in young adults: a longitudinal survey. [europepmc]
• Cumulative life events, traumatic experiences, and psychiatric symptomatology in transition-aged youth with autism spectrum disorder. [europepmc]
• Can social support buffer the association between loneliness and hypertension? a cross-sectional study in rural China. [europepmc]
• Risk Factors for Moral Injury Among Canadian Armed Forces Personnel. [europepmc]
• Evaluation of brain structure and metabolism in currently depressed adults with a history of childhood trauma. [europepmc]

Related

• A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of the Association Between Childhood Maltreatment and Adult Depression
• Childhood adversity, adult stressful life events, and risk of past-year psychiatric disorder: a test of the stress sensitization hypothesis in a population-based sample of adults
• The Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Development of Major Depressive Disorder and Treatment-Resistant Depression
• Childhood Exposure to Family Violence, Residential Instability, and Parental Incarceration: Compounding Household Adversities and Adolescent Delinquency
• Childhood emotional maltreatment and mental disorders: Results from a nationally representative adult sample from the United States