The mediating effect of self-compassion on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depression

Depression is the leading cause of suicide. Childhood maltreatment is an important influencing factor for depression in adulthood. However, the mediating effect of self-compassion between childhood maltreatment and depression has not yet been explored.

A cluster random sampling of 4189 students was selected from a university in Hebei Province, China. They completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, the Self-Compassion Scale, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale.

Depression is significantly positively correlated with childhood maltreatment and its subscales, including emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. Childhood maltreatment can affect depression not only directly, but also indirectly through self-compassion and its components of self-kindness, the sense of common humanity, and mindfulness.

Potential sampling bias, subjective measures, and the cross-sectional design are the main limitations.

Self-compassion partly plays a mediating role between childhood maltreatment and depression. College educators and clinicians should actively help college students who experienced abuse during childhood to increase their level of self-compassion to reduce their depression.