Relationships between early life adversity and depressive symptoms in adolescents: a network analysis

Previous studies have demonstrated that depressive symptoms in adolescents were strongly associated with early life adversity (ELA). However, previous studies mainly considered the relationships between a single dimension of ELA and depressive symptoms, while the relationship between various types of ELA and depressive symptoms in adolescents needs further investigation. The present study investigated the interplay between depressive symptoms and different dimensions of ELA via network analysis. A total of 736 adolescents were recruited and answered questionnaires to assess their depressive symptoms and ELAs. The regularized partial correlation network analysis was utilized to examine the direct associations between ELAs and depressive symptoms after controlling for the influence of other variables. The network structure revealed that depressive symptoms were independently associated with each type of ELA, including childhood threat/harshness, childhood deprivation, and childhood unpredictability. Moreover, among all ELA variables, emotional abuse (i.e., threat/harshness dimension) was mostly associated with depressive symptoms and demonstrated the highest expected influence among all nodes in the network. Findings suggested that emotional abuse plays a key role in the relationship between ELA and depressive symptoms in adolescents.