Prevalence of co-occurring severe depression and psychotic symptoms in college students and its relationship with childhood maltreatment

Yaru Zhang; Jianbo Liu; Lin Chen; Tingyu Yang; Xuerong Luo; Xilong Cui; Shuxian Wu; Yuqiong He; Jianping Lu

doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106470

Prevalence of co-occurring severe depression and psychotic symptoms in college students and its relationship with childhood maltreatment

Child Abuse Negl. 2023 Dec:146:106470. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106470. Epub 2023 Sep 23.

Authors

Yaru Zhang¹, Jianbo Liu², Lin Chen³, Tingyu Yang¹, Xuerong Luo¹, Xilong Cui¹, Shuxian Wu¹, Yuqiong He⁴, Jianping Lu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, and National Center for Mental Disorders, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha 410011, Hunan, China.
² Department of Child Psychiatry of Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen Mental Health Center, Shenzhen 518003, China.
³ The First Clinical College, Changsha Medical University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, and National Center for Mental Disorders, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha 410011, Hunan, China. Electronic address: heyuqiong@csu.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Child Psychiatry of Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen Mental Health Center, Shenzhen 518003, China. Electronic address: szlujianping@126.com.

PMID: 37748208
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106470

Abstract

Background: It has been demonstrated that childhood maltreatment (CM) is associated with an increased risk of depression and psychotic symptoms. However, there is still a lack of studies on the prevalence of co-occurring severe depression and psychotic symptoms (CSDPS) and the association between CM and CSDPS among college students.

Objective: We aim to investigate the prevalence and demographic distribution of CSDPS among Chinese college students and to examine its relationship with CM.

Participants and setting: A total of 7351 college students aged 18 and above completed the survey. Finally, 6854 valid questionnaires were included for further analysis.

Methods: The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the item for witnessing domestic violence were used to assess the CM. The Prodromal Questionnaire-16 and the depression subscale of the Depression Anxiety and Stress-21 scale were used to assess psychotic symptoms and depressive symptoms.

Results: The prevalence of CSDPS was 1.47 % among the college students. The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that emotional abuse and emotional neglect were associated with an increased risk of CSDPS (all p < 0.05). The risk of CSDPS was dramatically increased for individuals who had experienced ≥3 types of CM (OR = 22.929, p < 0.001), as compared to those who had experienced 1-2 types of CM (OR = 4.452, p < 0.001) and those without the experience of CM.

Conclusion: CM was found to be associated with an increased risk of CSDPS among the college students. Notably, experiencing more types of CM was also associated with a higher risk of CSDPS.

Keywords: Childhood maltreatment; College students; Depression; Psychotic symptoms; Witnessing of domestic violence.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Child Abuse* / psychology
Depression / epidemiology
Depression / psychology
Depressive Disorder, Major*
Humans
Prevalence
Students / psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires