Adverse childhood experiences: Prevalence and related factors in adolescents of a Brazilian birth cohort

Abstract

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect people's health and wellbeing not only at the time the ACE is experienced, but also later in life. The majority of studies on ACEs are carried out in high-income countries and little is known about its prevalence in low and middle-income countries. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of ACEs, associations between ACEs and sociodemographic factors, and the interrelationship between types of ACEs in adolescents of a Brazilian birth cohort. Data from 3,951 adolescents (78.4% of the original cohort) from the 1993 Pelotas Cohort were analyzed. Seven types of ACEs were assessed in those up to 18 years old: physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, domestic violence, parental separation and parental death. The most common ACE was parental separation (42%), followed by emotional neglect (19.7%) and domestic violence (10.3%). Approximately 85% of the adolescents experienced at least one ACE, and females reported a higher number of adversities. Several socioeconomic, demographic and family-related characteristics were associated with the occurrence of ACEs, e.g. non-white skin color, low family income, low maternal schooling, absence of mother's partner, maternal smoking, and poor maternal mental health. A strong interrelationship was observed among the ACEs, indicating clustering of risk. These aspects should be considered by health and social care professionals in the prevention and identification of childhood adversities.

Adverse childhood experiences and depressive symptomatology among pregnant women

“…Although the study group was demographically representative in terms of financial position, it represented a group with a more advanced level of education and a lower proportion of women with foreign origin when compared with the total population of women in this age group in Sweden at this time point . Because of this selection bias, the true prevalence of ACE may have been underestimated and resulted in a weaker association to DS than among that of the general population . Another decreased association could also be caused by an underestimation of the outcome level of DS caused by the lack of information about antidepressant usage.…”

Childhood maltreatment preceding depressive disorder at age 18 years: A prospective Brazilian birth cohort study

“…Participants completed a confidential questionnaire which was applied in a private place and placed in a sealed envelope after completion. Following prior work with this questionnaire (Soares et al, 2016), our exposures were defined according to positive answers to the following questions: Physical neglect: Have you ever not had enough food at home or had to wear dirty or torn clothes because you had no others? Physical abuse: Has an adult in your family or someone who was looking after you hit you in a way that left you hurt or bruised? Emotional abuse: Have you ever thought or felt that your parents did not want you to have been born? OR Have you ever thought or felt that someone in your family hates you?…”

Adverse childhood experiences in families with multiple members diagnosed to have psychiatric illnesses

“…Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) occur often (Kessler et al, 2010;Soares et al, 2016), and have been linked to a broad range of negative outcomes, both in terms of mental (Edwards et al, 2003;Van der Kolk, 2017) and physical health (Van der Kolk, 2017;Anda et al, 2006;Perry et al, 1995), as well as quality of life and life experiences (Chapman et al, 2011;Hillis et al, 2004). Overall, with respect to mental health, individuals who reported being physically and sexually abused as children were found to have more psychiatric conditions as adults (Jasinski et al, 2000;Leverich et al, 2002).…”