Childhood physical abuse and physical dating violence in young adulthood: The mediating role of adverse mental health

Objective The purpose of this study was to examine whether adverse mental health (i.e., symptoms of anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression) mediated the relation between childhood physical abuse (CPA) and physical dating violence (DV) victimization/perpetration in young adulthood. Method We used four waves of data from an ongoing longitudinal study. The sample consisted of 864 adolescents including 282 Hispanic Americans, 248 European Americans, 240 African Americans, and 94 other, with a mean age of 17 years at Wave 3. Results Structural equation modeling suggested that posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms mediated the link between CPA and both physical DV victimization (beta = .06, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.11) and perpetration (beta = .07, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.13). Anxiety and depressive symptoms, however, did not show significant indirect effects. Conclusions Findings highlight the importance of interventions targeting posttraumatic stress symptoms for adolescents who experienced CPA in preventing physical DV in young adulthood.