Home quarantine during COVID-19 blunted childhood trauma-related psychiatric symptoms in Chinese college students

Frontiers in Public Health

Public Health

Chengping Hu¹  Weiqing Liu¹  Wenjuan Hong¹  Nan Zhao¹  Qiang Wang¹  Yan Bai²  Ruoling Wang³  Qinghong Hou³ 

[1] Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Shanghai Pudong New Area Mental Health Center, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China;Department of Psychiatry, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China;Department of Student Mental Health, Dianchi College, Yunnan University, Kunming, China;

关键词: home quarantine;    mental health;    childhood trauma;    college student;    social supports;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpubh.2023.1073141

 received in 2022-10-18, accepted in 2023-03-27,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChildhood trauma confers risks to mental health. However, little is known about whether home quarantine (HQ) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic exaggerated or mitigated the effect of childhood trauma on mental health.ObjectiveTo examine the modulating effects of prior childhood traumas on the longitudinal changes of psychiatric symptoms in college students before and after HQ during the pandemic.MethodsThis was a two-wave longitudinal study on the mental health of 2,887 college students before and after HQ during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationships between the changes in the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), 16-item Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ-16), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) scores were analyzed.ResultsThe students with childhood trauma showed a significantly greater decrement in psychiatric symptoms after HQ (F = 17.21, 14.11, 18.87, and 17.42 for PHQ-9, PQ-16 objective and distress, and SCL-90, respectively). The correlation coefficients between the CTQ and these symptoms scales were significant at baseline (r = 0.42, 0.34, 0.37, and 0.39), and decreased after HQ (r = 0.17, 0.20, 0.18, and 0.19). The decrement of depressive, psychotic, and overall symptoms was positively correlated with the scores of the CTQ (r = 0.08–0.27) but negatively correlated with SSRS (r = −0.08−−0.14). Multilinear regression analysis confirmed the results of the CTQ and SSRS regarding the modulation of the dynamic changes in psychiatric symptoms. A constructed structural equation model indicated that the total effects of childhood trauma on decreased psychiatric symptoms were partly mediated by lower baseline social support.ConclusionHome quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic could blunt the adverse effects of childhood trauma on mental health, especially for prodromal psychotic symptoms in college students. Changes in relative deprivation and social support may be mediating factors.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Hong, Wang, Hou, Zhao, Wang, Bai, Hu and Liu.