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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV0251

Childhood emotional maltreatment and adult psychopathology: evidence for emotion regulation as a mediating mechanism

CHILDHOOD EMOTIONAL MALTREATMENT AND ADULT PSYCHOPATHOLOGY: EVIDENCE FOR EMOTION REGULATION AS A MEDIATING MECHANISM

In a population-representative German sample of 2,484 individuals, childhood emotional maltreatment was associated with self-reported psychiatric diagnoses in adulthood, and this association was mediated by reduced cognitive reappraisal, particularly in the case of emotional neglect.

The study aimed to examine whether cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression mediate the relationship between childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) and psychiatric morbidity in adulthood. Data were collected between October 2024 and February 2025 in a population-representative cross-sectional sample in Germany (N = 2,484; ages 16–92); measures included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and self-reported lifetime psychiatric diagnosis (yes/no). The analysis used parallel mediation models with PROCESS 4.2 Model 4 and 5,000 bootstrap samples, controlling for age, sex, education, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and physical neglect. Higher CEM was associated with increased odds of reporting a psychiatric diagnosis (OR = 1.09; p < 0.001) and showed a significant indirect effect through lower cognitive reappraisal (b = 0.0040; 95% CI [0.0013, 0.0076]); expressive suppression was not a significant mediator. In analyses of separate pathways, emotional neglect showed an OR of 1.06 (p < 0.001) and a significant indirect effect through reappraisal (b = 0.0051; 95% CI [0.0017, 0.0098]), whereas emotional abuse showed an OR of 1.15 (p < 0.001) but no significant indirect effect through either reappraisal or suppression. The path diagram in the poster reported a2 = -0.0221 (p < 0.001) for the path from CEM to reappraisal, b2 = -0.1801 (p < 0.001) for the path from reappraisal to diagnosis, and a direct effect of c' = 0.0900 (p < 0.001). In conclusion, childhood emotional maltreatment is independently associated with psychiatric morbidity in adulthood, and reduced cognitive reappraisal emerges as a significant psychological pathway, particularly in the case of emotional neglect. The differing patterns observed for abuse and neglect suggest that these two forms of maltreatment may operate through partly distinct developmental mechanisms.

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