Childhood adversities and depressive symptoms in women: a population-based cross-sectional study

To investigate the association between exposure to adversities in childhood and the occurrence of depressive symptoms in women in adulthood.

Epidemiological, cross-sectional, population-based study with 1100 women from Vitória, Espírito Santo, in 2022. The International Childhood Adversity Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory were used. In the analyses, crude and relative frequencies were calculated, with 95% confidence intervals. In the bivariate analyses, Pearson's chi-square test was applied, and for the analyses of associations with adjustments for confounding variables, logistic regression was used. The analyses were performed using Stata 17.0.

Women with a childhood history of physical neglect (ORa: 1.59; 95% CI: 1.16-2.16), sexual abuse (ORa: 1.57; 95% CI: 1.03-2.39), and an incarcerated family member (ORa: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.18-3.05) were more likely to experience depressive symptoms in adulthood compared to those who did not have such experiences.

The findings reveal how important and necessary it is to invest in intersectoral public policies for the protection of childhood and the tackling of economic inequalities, to minimize adverse events in this important phase of life, since they negatively impact health throughout life.