Citation Information :
Kayarpady A, Sourabh S, Rudra PN, Kumar S. A Comparative Study of Childhood Abuse in Depressed Female Patients and Patient Attendees in a Medicine Ward of a Tertiary Care Hospital. Ind J Priv Psychiatry 2023; 17 (1):10-13.
Background and aims: Adults with childhood abuse have high prevalence of psychiatric disorders out of which depressive disorder is most commonly reported. In addition, a dose–response relationship is reported to exist between childhood abuse and chronic depression. This study was conducted to estimate the proportion of depressed female patients having childhood abuse and to correlate between severity of childhood abuse and severity of depression.
Materials and methods: In total, 30 cases and 30 comparison groups between 18 and 65 years of age were included after informed consent, where cases included females with major depressive disorder and comparison group included attendees of patients admitted in general medicine ward of the same hospital in this cross-sectional analytical study. For cases, those with organic mood disorder, substance-induced mood disorders, and patients with severe medical illness were excluded, whereas for comparison group, those with current or past history of any psychiatric disorders and severe medical illness were excluded.
Study tools included sociodemographic questionnaire, MINI plus to screen for any psychiatric illness, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) to assess the severity of depressive disorder, and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) was used to screen for childhood trauma. Data were entered and analyzed in Microsoft Excel.
Results: Prevalence of childhood abuse in our study was higher in cases (60%) than comparison group (43%) but statistically was not found to be significant. Comorbid medical illness among cases was higher (37.7%) than the comparison group (3.3%) in our study (p < 0.003). History of psychiatric illness in parents was significantly higher among cases than comparison group (p = 0.01). Total trauma scores were significantly higher in cases than comparison group (p = 0.009). A prevalence of emotional abuse was significantly higher in cases (40%) than in the comparison group (13%). Positive correlation was found between CTQ scores and the severity of depression in our study (p = 0.002).
Conclusion: There is high prevalence of childhood abuse among depressed female patients compared with healthy comparison group. Severity of childhood abuse was positively correlated with severity of depression. It is thus important to recognize childhood abuse in female patients with depression, which necessitates management with psychotherapy in addition to pharmacotherapy for depression.
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