Loneliness mediates the relationship between childhood trauma and adult psychopathology: evidence from the adult psychiatric morbidity survey

Abstract

Childhood abuse (CA) has been found to be related to the development of a variety of psychiatric disorders in adulthood. Although CA is also associated with adult loneliness, few studies have investigated the role of loneliness as a mediator in the relationship between CA and adult psychopathology. Using data from a large, general population sample a mediation model was proposed and tested. Controlling for a range of background variables, the results from a series of regression analyses found that loneliness mediated the association between CA and six adult psychiatric disorders. The findings of this study highlight the importance of loneliness to the development of psychopathology. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Childhood abuse and late‐life depression: Mediating effects of psychosocial factors for early‐ and late‐onset depression

“…It might also be that a history of depression already influences the size of a social network as well as loneliness in adulthood, which increases the vulnerability for (another) depression. Our findings are in line with those of Shevlin et al, 33 who showed, in a sample of women with a mean age of 51 years, that loneliness mediated the association between childhood abuse and adult psychopathology including depression. However, to our knowledge, our study is the first that considered social network size or loneliness in late-life depression, differentiating between an early onset and a late onset.…”

Out of the blue: Untangling the association between impulsivity and planning in self-harm

“…Depression and anxiety therefore acted as mediators in this model. If Model 4 was an improvement over Model 1 (where the a and b paths of this indirect effect are fixed to zero) this would provide evidence of a mediation effect (Shevlin et al, 2015;Wickham et al, 2014). Model 4 was a substantial improvement over Model 1, ΔAIC¼ À394.37.…”

Trauma and Dissociation: Predictors of Loneliness in Students at an Urban University

“…Researchers have suggested that demographic variables (e.g., gender) are predictive of loneliness experiences, but results in this area are inconsistent on whether loneliness is more prevalent in men (Dykstra & de Jong Gierveld, 2004) or women (Jakobsson & Hallberg, 2005). More recently, researchers have examined instances of trauma and their role in one's experiences of loneliness (e.g., Shevlin, McElroy, & Murphy, 2015;Solomon, Bensimon, Greene, Horesh, & Ein-Dor, 2015).…”