Childhood Maltreatment to Adulthood Depressive Symptoms: Mediating Roles of Sedentary Behavior and Sleep Disturbance

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 8. The Life Course and Health II

Abstract

The literature highlighted the need to explore the role of behavioral factors (such as sedentary behavior, lower physical activity, sleep disturbance) that may trigger the association between child maturement and depressive symptoms. This study is an effort to understand the association between child maltreatment and depressive symptoms from young adulthood (18–26) into mid-adulthood (33–43) via mediators of behavioral factors (sedentary behavioral and lower MVPA) and sleep disturbance. The study utilized Add health data from Wave I to Wave IV, reflecting childhood phase of respondents to mid-adulthood. I used Latent Growth Model to answer study’s research questions. The findings revealed that there is direct strong positive association between child maltreatment and depressive symptoms in young adulthood (18-26 years) however, maltreatment does not increase the rate of change in depressive symptoms from young adulthood to mid-adulthood. Instead, it establishes a persistent vulnerability that carries forward across adulthood via behavioral factors and sleep disturbance. The higher level of sedentary behavior / lower MVPA in adulthood is associated with poorer sleep quality in middle or later adulthood. Overall, sleep disturbance was found a most powerful proximal mechanism linking adult behavioral risks to depression and it significantly predicts depressive symptoms in adulthood. The findings highlighted the need to introduce interventions to increase physical activity in adulthood and to reduce sleep disturbance issues in order to mitigate with mental health issues among those who are exposed to child maltreatment.

Author

• Mudasir Mustafa, University of West Florida