Childhoods abuse twice the risk of developing long term and multiple episodes of depression and these patients are less prone to respond to treatment, found researchers. Depression in some and another form can affect one in five people at some point in their lives.
Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry from University College London conducted a combined analysis of twenty-six studies involving more than twenty-three thousand people. The study found that those who suffered maltreatment such as rejection by the mother, harsh physical treatment or sexual abuse as children had more than doubled the risk of this type of depression.
People who had stressful or abusive childhoods were also less prone to be helped with psychological treatment, shoed the analysis. It suggests doctors and researchers to look for new kinds of treatments and ways of intervening earlier. Childhood maltreatment is believed to cause changes to the brain, immune system and some hormone glands.
One possible mechanism known as epigenetic may cause changes to the DNA. While there is no alteration in the genetic code, the environment can change the way genes are expressed. Depression is a major cause of mortality, disability, and economic burden globally and WHO predicts depression will be the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease in future.
According to study leader Dr Andrea Danese, identifying those at risk of multiple and long-lasting depressive episodes is crucial from a public health viewpoint. The study showed that prevention and early intervention measures to target childhood maltreatment could prove crucial in helping prevent the major global health problem. The study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Knowing that people with a history of maltreatment will not respond as well to treatment may also be valuable for clinicians in determining prognosis of patients, added Dr Danese. The earlier study has shown that people who were maltreated as children also have biological scars from those experiences.
It may appear obvious that traumatic events in our lives can make us depressed, but this study highlights how particularly damaging such traumas can be when experienced during childhood, when our brains are still developing, stated Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane.
People should be concerned about how abuse and neglect creates a painful bequest that can last a lifetime, increasing chances of experiencing repeated episodes of depression and reducing the effects of those treatments that are available to people. This type of study can point the way to better treatments and preventative events, added Wallace.