[Child battering and adult psychopathology: an empiric study]

Childhood trauma and battering have been associated with adult psychopathology.

To explore the relationship between childhood trauma, somatization, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), affective disorder and borderline personality disorder in hospitalized patients of four Chilean hospitals.

Five hundred five patients were screened by a short seven item trauma recollection scale (70 from San Bernardo Hospital, 193 from Salvador Hospital, 97 from El Trabajador Hospital and 147 from Curico Hospital). A random sample of 85 cases was studied in depth using the CIDI 2.1, depression, PTSD and somatization scales, Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO) and the OQ 45.2 scale.

Forty five percent of patients did not report traumatic experiences, 38.4% recalled one or two events and 16.3% three or more traumatic experiences. The most remembered event was physical punishment (28.7%), followed by traumatic separation from parents (27.1%), alcohol and drug use by an adult at home (22%) and presence of family violence (22%). Thirty two percent of the 85 selected cases met CIDI criteria for affective disorder, 20% for post traumatic stress disorder and 11.8% for somatization disorder. There were statistically significant correlations between the frequence of trauma and post traumatic stress disorder (p <0.001), as well as somatization and depressive disorder (p <0.007 and 0.008).

This study supports the concept that traumatic psychosocial environments during childhood are a risk factor for diverse psychiatric syndromes during adulthood.