A new article published in BMC Psychiatry finds that childhood maltreatment and trauma (CMT) is linked to increased psychosis symptom severity in people diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD).
The research, led by Nina Mørkved of the Arctic University of Norway, concludes that this link is not explained or moderated by parental mental health problems. This finding suggests that childhood maltreatment independently contributes to psychosis symptom severity.
Previous research has repeatedly found a link between adverse childhood experiences and mental health problems. However, critics have suggested that poor parental mental health may be the actual cause of the observed links in that research. These critics maintain that poor parental mental health acts as both a genetic and environmental factor contributing to mental health problems, thereby preserving the biomedical emphasis on genetics in the face of overwhelming evidence implicating maltreatment and abuse.
The current finding undercuts that criticism by establishing a link between childhood maltreatment and psychosis severity independent of poor parental mental health.
The authors write:
“The present study examined the moderating effect of parental MHP on the relationship between CMT and psychosis in SSDs,” the authors write. “We found an association between CMT and psychosis symptom severity in SSDs, especially for the PANSS total scores and the PANSS negative sub scale scores. Parental MHP was not found to moderate the association of CMT and psychosis symptom severity in our sample of SSDs, suggesting that the effect of CMT on psychosis symptom severity is independent of having parental MHP.”
