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Understanding the relationship between early life adversity and depressive symptoms: a network analysis

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Abstract

Accumulating empirical evidence has demonstrated that early life adversity (ELA) is closely associated with depressive symptoms. However, previous studies focused on the relationship between a single dimension of ELA and depressive symptoms without taking other dimensions of ELA into consideration. The relationships between depressive symptoms and different types of ELAs warrant further exploration. The regularized partial correlation network analysis was utilized to examine the direct associations between each type of ELA and depressive symptoms, after controlling for the influence of other variables. Given concerns about the replicability of networks from network analysis, an independent sample was used to verify the stability of the observed network structure occurring in the main sample. The network structure revealed that depressive symptoms were independently associated with each type of ELA. Moreover, among all ELA nodes, childhood emotional abuse was most closely linked to depressive symptoms and showed the highest expected influence. No significant differences were found between the two networks in global connectivity (difference = 0.29, p = 0.44) and structure (difference = 0.12, p = 0.29), indicating the good replicability of the network structure. Findings suggest that childhood emotional maltreatment plays a central role in linking ELA and depressive symptoms in adulthood. Therefore, interventions against emotional trauma in childhood seem most likely to thrive in adulthood.

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Data availability

The datasets are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32100891) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2021JJ40347).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, 36 Lushan Road, Changsha, 410005, China

    Ming-yue Yang, Zhao-ying Wang, Jie-mei Liu & Rui-ting Zhang

  2. Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China

    Ming-yue Yang, Zhao-ying Wang, Jie-mei Liu & Rui-ting Zhang

  3. Counseling and Psychological Services, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China

    Jian Lu

  4. The University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney, Australia

    Tao Chen

  5. The University of Sydney, School of Psychology, Sydney, Australia

    Tao Chen

  6. Center for Mind & Brain Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China

    Rui-ting Zhang

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MYY collected the data and wrote up the drafts of the paper. ZYW, JML, and JL collected data and interpreted findings. TC commented the drafts critically. RTZ generated the idea, designed the study and interpreted the findings.

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Correspondence to Rui-ting Zhang.

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Yang, My., Wang, Zy., Liu, Jm. et al. Understanding the relationship between early life adversity and depressive symptoms: a network analysis. Curr Psychol 43, 5580–5588 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04757-0

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