Legacies of Childhood Victimization: Indirect Effects on Adult Mental Health Through Re-Victimization

Abstract

The objective of the current study was to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of childhood victimization on adult mental health, focusing on adult re-victimization as a mediator. Participants (n = 279) were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk reported on childhood victimization, adulthood victimization, and current mental health. Sixty percent of the sample reported at least one incident of re-victimization in adulthood. Three regressions were conducted in SPSS using the PROCESS macro for mediation, and the indirect effect was tested through bootstrapping (10,000) confidence intervals. Total childhood victimization was a significant predictor of current anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress. For all models, adulthood re-victimization was a significant mediator of the relationship between childhood victimization and current mental health. The effects of childhood victimization on mental health are at least in part explained by the high risk of chronic re-victimization into adulthood.

Characteristics of Disclosing Childhood Victimization and Risk of Revictimization in Young Adulthood

“…Characteristics of victimization and revictimization in our study were also strikingly similar to another study that used the JVQ with mostly White, female adults (ages 19–62 years), which reported the exact same order for most common subtypes of childhood victimization experiences and a 59.5% rate of revictimization in adulthood (Scrafford et al, 2018). Of note, we did not control for participant gender as this was not related to the dependent variable, number of adulthood victimization experiences.…”

“…It is notable that our findings replicated that of this study by Finkelhor and colleagues when we used a modified version of the JVQ and five different measures of adulthood victimization. These findings suggest that future revictimization research should continue to examine various victimization types, as limiting examination of revictimization to one type is likely to underestimate the full burden of broader victimization that these individuals experience (Hamby et al, 2017; Scrafford et al, 2018; Turner et al, 2010). Furthermore, future research should examine relationships between distinct types of victimization to further understand which types may pose the greatest risk for others.…”

“…Another study that examined relationships between childhood victimization and adulthood revictimization used the retrospective version of the JVQ with mostly White (75.3%) adults (aged 19-62 years, 62% female, wide range of annual income). Researchers found that 59.5% of the sample reported at least one incident of revictimization in adulthood (Scrafford et al, 2018).…”

“…It is clear that there is strong evidence for revictimization of similar types. However, several researchers have noted that focusing on individual types of victimization likely underestimates the full burden of broader victimization that children experience because all forms of violence and victimization are closely interrelated (Hamby et al, 2017; Scrafford et al, 2018; Turner et al, 2010). For example, victimization may take similar forms such as childhood physical abuse and physical intimate partner violence (IPV).…”

Psychiatric comorbidity of developmental trauma disorder and posttraumatic Stress disorder: findings from the DTD field trial replication (DTDFT-R)

“…The estimated annual cost of childhood fatal and nonfatal maltreatment in the USA in 2015 was 2.0 USD trillion, and this does not include the quality of life costs in pain and suffering experienced by maltreated children before they reach adulthood (Peterson, Florence, & Klevens, 2018). With the high risk of adult re-victimization experienced by children who are victimized and have mental health problems (Lee, 2015;Papalia et al, 2017;Ports, Ford, & Merrick, 2015;Scrafford, Grein, & Miller-Graff, 2018), the lifetime economic burden may be severe: the estimated annual cost of rape in the USA in 2014 was 3.1 USD trillion (Peterson, DeGue, Florence, & Lokey, 2017) and the cost of intimate partner violence in 2015 was 3.6 USD trillion , 50-60% of which was due to medical costs.…”