Mechanisms linking child maltreatment with depression and anxiety (Symposium)

Social support is a well-established protective factor for mental health in individuals who experienced child maltreatment. What remains unclear are prerequisites for receiving and accepting social support in young adults who experienced child maltreated. Child maltreatment may lead to maladaptive internal working models of others and of relationships which can hinder engaging in supportive relationships (Howe, 2005). This study aimed at exploring predictors of social support in young adults such as child maltreatment, emotion regulation and social information processing. Furthermore, social support and emotion regulation were analyzed as potential mediators of the link between child maltreatment and depressive and anxiety symptoms in young adults. A total of 510 Swiss young adults aged 18 to 24 took part in an online-questionnaire on child maltreatment, social relationships and psychopathological distress. A subsample of participants with and without child maltreatment (n=60) are participating in an ongoing behavioral assessment of social intelligence (Magdeburger Test of Social Intelligence, Conzelmann, Weis & Süß, 2013). Structural equation modelling showed that social support was predicted by lower levels of child maltreatment, better social information processing, and more adaptive emotion regulation. The association between child maltreatment and depressive symptoms was partially mediated by lower social support (moderate effect) and less adaptive emotion regulation (weak effect). For anxiety symptoms, we found only a weak protective effect of social support and no effect of emotion regulation. The behavioral measure of social intelligence as predictor of social support will be integrated in the models. Results suggest that targets for interventions for young adults who experienced child maltreatment are emotion regulation and social information processing, which can facilitate social support as protective factor for depressive symptoms.