Association between childhood trauma and 26-week prognosis in adolescents with major depressive disorder: a cohort study

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common, severe, and recurrent condition. As an essential factor in the occurrence and development of adolescent depression, childhood trauma may also have a specific predictive effect on the responsiveness of antidepressant treatment and play a particular guiding role in the treatment of depression in adolescents.

We conducted a 26-week follow-up survey on 150 patients. A self-administered questionnaire was used to capture general sociodemographic information about the patients. The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD), the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Insomnia Severity Index Scale (ISI), and the Positive and Negative Suicide Ideation Scale (PANSI) were used to assess the patients' clinical symptoms.

We found the prevalence of emotional abuse was 52.0%, physical abuse was 20.0%, sexual abuse was 10.7%, emotional neglect was 61.3%, and physical neglect was 62.0% among adolescents with MDD. Logistic regression analysis showed that childhood trauma, particularly emotional abuse and emotional neglect (P < 0.05), was associated with lower odds of a positive treatment response at the 26-week follow-up.

The results showed that having experienced childhood trauma, especially emotional abuse or neglect, was associated with a lower likelihood of a positive treatment response in adolescents with depression. This suggests that families, schools and society should better screen for and prevent traumatic childhood events, and provide support to adolescents exposed to trauma, to help improve outcomes with adolescent depression.

Not applicable.