Early exposure to emotional violence “significantly” increases the chances that youths will contemplate suicide, according to new research from three countries conducted by Washington University in St. Louis’ Brown School.
“We find the odds of suicide ideation are consistently and significantly greater for adolescents who report overexposure to emotional violence,” said Lindsay Stark, associate professor and co-author of the study “A Sex-disaggregated Analysis of How Emotional Violence Relates to Suicide Ideation in Low- and Middle-income Countries,” published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.
The same consistency is not observed for any other form of maltreatment across countries, found Stark and co-author Ilana Seff of Columbia University.
Stark and Seff reviewed national data drawn from 9,300 adolescents and young adults aged 13-24 in the Violence Against Children Surveys, a collaborative effort by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, country governments and other bilateral and multilateral organizations.
They collected surveys from Haiti, Kenya and Tanzania containing detailed information on young people’s experiences with physical, emotional and sexual violence, as well as their mental health and well-being.
Questions about emotional violence included whether adults had ever threatened to abandon the children, made them feel unwanted, or humiliated them in front of others. Stark and Seff found an association between youth with those experiences and the ones who considered suicide.
Approximately 26%–45% of respondents, depending on sex and country, reported having ever experienced emotional violence. Self-reported suicide ideation was consistently higher for females in all countries; nearly 27%, 15% and 8% of females had ever considered suicide in Haiti, Kenya and Tanzania, respectively, compared to 8%, 7% and 6% of males.
“We find there exists a significant relationship between exposure to emotional violence and suicide ideation for both males and females in all countries in the sample,” the authors wrote in the paper. “No other form of child maltreatment was found to be associated with suicide ideation in more than one country, suggesting that emotional violence may actually be more powerful than physical and sexual abuse in its impact on adolescent suicide behaviors in low- and middle-income countries.”
The analysis suggests that mental health practitioners should offer suicide prevention programs to those with a history of emotional abuse.
AsiaNaprawia on June 23rd, 2019 at 05:47 UTC »
Childhood traumas coming from emotional abuse increase chances of developing various mental disorders ie. borderline (as a response to parent threatening to leave child/family)
I remember watching TED talk of pediatrician who was looking at correlation between traumas/abuse and chances of developing various health problems (not only mental disorders). Correlation was strong child who was exposed to 3 types of abuse was having more chances to develop heart problems, depression and addiction
So for me it is not a new thing, but good to see more of those types of analysis.
Stay strong folks
tukekairo on June 22nd, 2019 at 23:11 UTC »
Also known as emotional abuse, or psychological abuse in some research
mvea on June 22nd, 2019 at 22:02 UTC »
The title of the post is a copy and paste from the title and sixth paragraph of the linked academic press release here:
Journal Reference:
Ilana Seff, Lindsay Stark,
A sex-disaggregated analysis of how emotional violence relates to suicide ideation in low- and middle-income countries,
Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 93, 2019, Pages 222-227,
Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213419301760
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.05.008.
Abstract:
Background
In recent years, research has increasingly focused on examining the relationship between one type of child maltreatment -- emotional violence -- and suicidal behaviors. However, the growing body of empirical evidence supporting these associations has been mostly limited to high-income contexts.
Objective
This study examines how exposure to emotional violence is associated with suicide ideation in childhood and adolescence in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and whether this association differs by sex.
Participants and setting
We employ nationally representative samples of 13–24 year-old males and females from the Violence Against Children Surveys in Tanzania (conducted in 2009), Kenya (2010), and Haiti (2012).
Methods
We use logistic regressions to estimate the odds of ever reporting suicide ideation, separately, for each country; models control for self-reported exposure to emotional violence, physical violence from a caregiver, physical violence by an adult in the community, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and age. Formal moderation by sex for each form of child maltreatment is tested using interaction terms.
Results
We find the odds of suicide ideation are consistently and significantly greater for adolescents who report ever exposure to emotional violence. This same consistency is not observed for any other form of maltreatment across countries. The size of the relationship between emotional violence and suicide ideation is statistically significantly larger for males in Kenya only.
Conclusion
Research in LMICs should explore the mediating factors linking emotional abuse in childhood and adolescence to suicide ideation in adolescence, paying special attention to whether these pathways might operate differently by sex.