Childhood Verbal and Physical Abuse Harm Adult Mental Health

TOPLINE:

Physical and verbal abuse during childhood were each associated with a greater than 50% increase in likelihood of poor mental health during adulthood, with exposure to both types of abuse compounding the risk, new research showed.

METHODOLOGY:

The secondary analysis of seven cross-sectional surveys conducted between 2012 and 2024 included data for more than 20,000 adults living in England and Wales.

Participants’ self-reported exposure to physical and verbal abuse before the age of 18 years using questions from an Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire. They were classified as having experienced either of the following during childhood: neither abuse type, physical abuse only, verbal abuse only, or both physical and verbal abuse.

Child abuse was defined as an action by a