Internalizing Disorders as a Mediator of the Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Perceived Medication Intolerance or Poly-Allergy.

Abstract

There is a well-established link between adverse childhood events, mental health and physical health conditions. There is also a large literature showing the relationship between medication intolerance or allergies, and poor health outcomes. However, less is understood about the role of medication intolerance and adverse childhood events. Thus, the present study examines the relationship between adverse childhood events, internalizing disorders (depression, anxiety) and medication intolerance. Three hundred 49 participants (349) were recruited from 11 primary care practices and health networks located in a large, Midwestern metropolitan area. Seemingly unrelated linear and Poisson regression was used to determine whether internalizing disorders, such as depression and anxiety, mediate the relationship between Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and allergies to medications to account for error terms in regression equations that are correlated. Results indicated an association between ACEs and number of allergies to medication, whereby ACEs was associated with depression, anxiety and number of allergies, and depression was associated with number of allergies. Sensitivity analysis confirmed these findings. There was a small but significant indirect effect of anxiety on allergies to medication after bootstrapping. This study shows that inflammatory responses occurring because of trauma and depression may be increasing medication allergies. However, given the size of the sample, more research is needed to confirm these results. Implications for healthcare providers are discussed.