Assistant Professor National University of Singapore Singapore, Singapore
Overview: Childhood traumatic experiences (CTEs) detrimentally affect the psychosocial development of young people. However, the associations between CTEs and subsequent internalizing problems are little known among college students. This study aims to determine whether distinct latent classes of CTEs using LCA and its internalizing symptoms among college students.Proposal text: Background/Rationale
Childhood traumatic experiences (CTEs) are a pervasive societal concern all over the world. Previous studies indicate that CTEs consistently predict a variety of internalizing symptoms in later life (Lew & Xian, 2019). Specifically, higher exposure to CTEs was significantly associated with increased risks of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicidal ideation (Infurna et al., 2016). Despite mounting strong evidence about the association between CTEs and internalizing symptoms, there is a paucity of empirical knowledge on how different patterns of CTEs influence internalizing problematic symptoms in young adulthood. Using a latent class analysis (LCA), this study aims to address what different patterns of traumatic events are mainly occurred in childhood and how each type of CTEs are associated with internal symptoms among college students.
Methods/Methodology
This study employed a web-based survey to collect data from college students aged 21-29 (Mean age=23.8 years, SD=1.81) in a large public university in Singapore. The retrospective and cross-sectional survey was performed and yielded a final sample of 1,042 students. Of the sample, 73% were females and 92% were Chinese (local ethnic majority). To better understand the patterns of CTEs in the sample, a LCA of the seven CTEs variables (i.e., three domains of childhood abuse, two domains of childhood neglect, childhood traditional-victimization and cyber-victimization), using Mplus and the poLCA package in R was conducted. Further, a series of linear regression analyses with the five internalizing symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, PTSD, eating disorder and suicidal ideation) were run to test research hypotheses.
Results
Results showed gender and ethnic differences in some types of CTEs and internalizing symptoms. Among the seven indicators of CTEs, males (47.3%) experienced more CPA than females (32.9%), while females (64%) reported more CEA than males (32.9%). Additionally, non-Chinese students (18.4%) showed more CSA than Chinese students (10.1%), while Chinese students (75.7%) experienced more CEN than non-Chinese counterparts (60.5%). We found that scores of anxiety and eating disorder symptoms were significantly higher in females than males. Except for suicidal ideation, four internalizing symptoms were significantly higher in non-Chinese students than Chinese students. Using LCA, a four-class typology was uncovered, including low CTEs (Class-1; 24.57%), high/multiple CTEs (Class-2; 21.25%), moderate abuse/victimization (Class-3; 22.56%), and physical and emotional neglect (Class-4; 31.62%). Students in all CTE classes (high/multiple CTEs, abuse/victimization, and physical and emotional neglect) were more likely to report the symptoms of depression, anxiety, eating disorder and suicidal ideation, compared to those who had experienced low CTEs.
Conclusions
This study contributes to scholarship on the association between the patterns of CTEs and mental health outcomes for young adults, which has implications for social work research and practice. The findings can be used by social work practitioners in developing and implementing effective abuse and victimization prevention programs to inform students, parents, and school administrators regarding the significance of traumatic experiences in childhood and severe internalizing problematic consequences. Insights gained from the current findings could also shed light on specific intervention strategies for college students that address mechanisms of the association between CTEs and diverse internalizing symptoms.
