Association between emotional abuse and depressive symptoms in Chinese children: The mediating role of emotion regulation

Abstract

Background: Emotional abuse has been identified as a risk factor for children's depressive symptoms. However, the specific psychological mechanisms mediating this relation are not well understood.

Objective: This longitudinal study examined the relation of emotional abuse to subsequent depressive symptoms and the possible mediating role of emotion regulation among Chinese children.

Participants and setting: The sample included 3633 children (45.5 % girls) with an average age of 9.96 years from a large city in southern China.

Method: Participants completed multiple measurements of emotional abuse, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms on five occasions at six-month intervals, controlling for sex, age, and physical abuse and emotional neglect at Time 1. Latent growth curve modeling was applied to examine the longitudinal relations among the variables.

Results: Results showed (a) emotional abuse was significantly positively associated with subsequent depressive symptoms; (b) cognitive reappraisal mediated the relation between emotional abuse and depressive symptoms, but expressive suppression did not.

Conclusions: The results highlighted the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal in the relation between emotional abuse and depressive symptoms, suggesting that intervention programs targeting cognitive reappraisal may be effective to reduce the likelihood of depressive symptoms among Chinese children.

Keywords: Depressive symptoms; Emotion regulation; Emotional abuse; Latent growth curve modeling; Mediating role.