The Relationship Between Number of Types of Childhood Trauma,Number of Psychophysiological Disorders,and Length of Medical Disability

Abstract

According to the empirical literature, childhood abuse appears to have a number of negative clinical effects on psychophysiological disorders, including higher symptom levels and greater functional disability. However, prior studies in this area have typically examined only one or two types of childhood trauma (e.g., sexual and physical abuse) as well as only one type of psychophysiological disorder. Likewise, few studies have explicitly examined the relationship of these variables to employment disability for medical reasons. In this study, the authors wanted to explore the relationships, if any, between the number of types of childhood adversity (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, witnessing violence, physical neglect) and the number of psychophysiological disorders reported (up to six checklist items), and their relationship to the length of employment disability for medical reasons in adulthood. Using a cross sectional sample and a self-report survey method, the authors examined 97 internal medicine outpatients. It was found that both the number of childhood-trauma types (r = .23, p < .05) and the number of psychophysiological disorders (r = .26, p < .05) were related to the duration of medical disability. Through regression analysis, it was also found that the number of psychophysiological disorders made a unique, albeit small (i.e., 6% of the variance), contribution to the length of medical disability, whereas the number of childhood abuses did not. However, the interaction between the two variables accounted for an additional 11% of the variance. These findings suggest that the number of types of childhood abuses as well as the number of psychophysiological disorders have an influence on the length of medical disability but in uniquely influential ways.

Keywords

child trauma disability medical disability child abuse childhood adversity

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