Link between History of Childhood Maltreatment and Emotion Dysregulation in Adults Suffering from Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder.

Eva Rüfenacht,Nader Perroud,Karen Dieben,Roland Hasler,Eléonore Pham,Sébastien Weibel,Rosetta Nicastro

doi:10.3390/biomedicines9101469

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment (CM) may have a long-term effect on emotion regulation. This study aimed to explore the relationship between CM and emotion dysregulation (ED) in a heterogeneous population. Four hundred seventy French-speaking outpatients (N = 279 ADHD, N = 70 BPD, N = 60 ADHD + BPD, N = 61 clinical controls) completed the Emotion Reactivity Scale (ERS), the Cognitive Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and the Relationship Scales Questionnaire (RSQ). Reports of childhood maltreatment experiences were significantly associated with increased levels of emotion reactivity in all our groups and in the whole population, with a greater use of non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and insecure attachment patterns. Emotional abuse showed the strongest effect. Further analysis indicated that an anxious attachment style significantly mediated the relationship between CM and the use of non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and emotion reactivity. The results of our study suggest an impact of CM on ED and a potentially marked effect of emotional abuse. They also indicate a potentially mediating role of insecure attachment in the relationship between a history of childhood abuse and emotion reactivity and a higher use of non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in adulthood.

Highlights

IntroductionExperiencing childhood maltreatment can have a long-term impact on mental health and there is some evidence suggesting its association with several psychiatric disorders in adulthood [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
Our study investigated whether childhood abuse could be linked to emotion dysregulation (ED) in a heterogenous sample including borderline personality disorder (BPD), Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and BPD + ADHD patients as well as a clinical control population consisting of patients referred for assessment for these disorders
The results of our study back up previous data suggesting that childhood maltreatment has an impact on emotion dysregulation, and that the effect of emotional abuse can potentially be marked

Summary

Introduction

Experiencing childhood maltreatment can have a long-term impact on mental health and there is some evidence suggesting its association with several psychiatric disorders in adulthood [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Numerous BPD patients report past experiences of some form of childhood abuse, and individuals reporting a history of childhood abuse or neglect present a higher likelihood of developing a personality disorder (PD) during early adulthood [12,16,18,19,20]. There is some evidence suggesting that high levels of ADHD symptoms in adulthood may be associated with childhood maltreatment [8]

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