Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to first examine whether childhood abuse predicts symptom complexity, as indicated by the number of clinically elevated scales on the MMPI-2 in an adult clinical sample. Secondly, we investigated whether emotion regulation difficulties mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and symptom complexity. A total of 162 adult outpatients not presenting with psychotic symptoms completed the Korean Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (K-CTQ), Life Events Checklist (LEC), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Korean Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). Partial correlation analysis results indicated that after controlling for the presence of adulthood trauma, childhood abuse was associated with more symptom complexity, or more clinically elevated scales on the MMPI-2. Furthermore, structural equation modeling results showed that emotion regulation difficulties partially mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and symptom complexity. These findings indicate that individuals who had experienced childhood abuse evidence simultaneous presentation of diverse clinical symptoms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1313-1319 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Child Abuse and Neglect |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 Aug |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the 2013 Inje University research grant. The funding source had no involvement in the conduct of research and preparation of the article. Poster presentation of a portion of this research was made at the 2014 American Psychological Association Annual Convention.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health
