Racial/ethnic differences in the association of childhood adversities with depression and the role of resilience.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) including childhood abuse and trauma increase depressive symptoms. The role of resilience and how it interacts with both ACEs and the potential development of depressive symptoms, including how race and ethnicity moderate these effects, are much less studied. The aims of this study were to examine: 1) whether there is a dose-response relationship between trauma and depressive symptoms; 2) whether early trauma affected European Americans (EA) and African Americans (AA) in a similar fashion; and 3) whether resilience mitigates the effect of trauma.



The present study comprised a cross-sectional study of subjects from a longitudinal cohort. All subjects were 19 years or older with traumatic experiences prior to age 18. Subjects were assessed for depressive symptoms as well as resilience.



In 413 subjects enrolled, ACEs were significantly associated with depression severity in a dose-response fashion (p<0.001). Notably, AAs had lower depression scores at low to moderate levels of ACEs than EAs, but reported comparable levels of depression with severe exposure to ACEs (pInteraction=0.05). In both EAs and AAs, young adults with high and medium levels of resilience showed less depressive symptoms compared to those with low resilience (p<0.05).



to consider are the cross-sectional design, possibility of other confounders, and potential for recall bias of this study.



While ACEs were significantly associated with severity of depression in a dose-response fashion, higher resilience mitigated the impact of childhood adversities on depressive symptoms in young adults. The results are encouraging, and guides research for therapeutics to boost resilience.
Department of Psychiatry & Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA. Electronic address: nyoussef@augusta.edu.
Nagy A
NA
Youssef
Department of Surgery, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
Daniel
D
Belew
Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
Guang
G
Hao
Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
Xiaoling
X
Wang
Technology Applications Center for Healthful Lifestyles, Colleges of Nursing and Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
Frank A
FA
Treiber
Department of Psychological Sciences, College of Science and Mathematics, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
Michael
M
Stefanek
Department of Psychiatry & Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
Mark
M
Yassa
Department of Psychiatry & Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
Elizabeth
E
Boswell
Department of Psychiatry & Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.
W Vaughn
WV
McCall
Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA. Electronic address: ssu@augusta.edu.
Shaoyong
S
Su
D000328:Adult; D000069586:Adult Survivors of Child Adverse Events / Q000523:psychology*; D001741:Black or African American; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult
Adverse childhood experiences; Depressive symptoms; Race/ethnicity; Resilience