Childhood maltreatment and adult medical morbidity in mood disorders: comparison of unipolar depression with bipolar disorder

Abstract

BackgroundThe medical burden in mood disorders is high; various factors are thought to drive this pattern. Little research has examined the role of childhood maltreatment and its effects on medical morbidity in adulthood among people with unipolar depression and bipolar disorder.AimsThis is the first study to explore the association between childhood maltreatment and medical morbidity in bipolar disorder and in unipolar depression, and examine whether the impact of abuse and neglect are distinct or combined.MethodThe participants consisted of 354 psychiatrically healthy controls, 248 participants with recurrent unipolar depression and 72 with bipolar disorder. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and received a validated medical history interview.ResultsAny type of childhood maltreatment, child abuse and child neglect were significantly associated with the medical burden in bipolar disorder, but not unipolar depression or for controls. These associations worked in a dose–response fashion where participants with bipolar disorder with a history of two or more types of childhood maltreatment had the highest odds of having a medical illness relative to those without such history or those who reported one form. No such significant dose–response patterns were detected for participants with unipolar depression or controls.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that childhood maltreatment may play a stronger role in the development of medical illnesses in individuals with bipolar disorder relative to those with unipolar depression. Individuals who had been maltreated with a mood disorder, especially bipolar disorder may benefit most from prevention and intervention efforts surrounding physical health.Declaration of interestNone.

Influence of childhood maltreatment on prevalence, onset, and persistence of psychiatric comorbidities and suicide attempts in bipolar disorders

“…To date, there is no consensus about the most appropriate way to identify individuals who were exposed to severe/ multiple forms of childhood maltreatment. The CTQ total score can be used as a continuous variable (eventually divided in quartiles of severity), while severe/multiple maltreatment can be defined by an ordinal variable (number of subtypes of trauma of at least a moderate severity) or by a binary variable (childhood maltreatment being considered present if any type of abuse or neglect was rated as moderate or severe) [47,48]. Finally, the representativeness of the sample used in this study may be questioned since individuals with very high or very low rates of psychiatric comorbidities might have been less likely to be referred to the network, because not enough stabilized (for the first ones) or not requiring any advice from tertiary universities-affiliated services (for the second ones).…”

Associations Between Child Maltreatment, Inflammation, and Comorbid Metabolic Syndrome to Depressed Mood in a Multiethnic Urban Population: The HELIUS Study

“…Child maltreatment has been found to increase the risk for comorbid physical health conditions to psychiatric conditions, including MDD ( Widom et al, 2007 ; Scott et al, 2011 ). Three previous studies investigated the association between child maltreatment and comorbid (components of) metabolic syndrome to MDD ( McIntyre et al, 2012 ; Wingenfeld et al, 2017 ; Hosang et al, 2018 ). These previous studies showed inconsistent findings regarding the association between child maltreatment and risk for comorbid metabolic syndrome to MDD ( McIntyre et al, 2012 ; Wingenfeld et al, 2017 ; Hosang et al, 2018 ).…”

Childhood maltreatment and metabolic syndrome in bipolar disorders: In search of moderators

“…However, the results in the literature are scarce with a few studies, all performed in limited sample sizes and with inconsistent results (Aas et al, 2017;Hosang et al, 2018;Leclerc et al, 2018;McIntyre et al, 2012).…”