Download pdf
The Correlation Between Parental Maltreatment and Depressive Symptoms Severity in Adolescents in the Chinese Context
- 1 University of Washington
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Depression has become a common mental disorder worldwide, and the incidence group is getting younger. In the Chinese context, data collected from surveys and news both indicate that parental maltreatment is one of the significant contributors to the increase in youth depression. This study focuses on studying the correlation between three types of parental maltreatment, which are parental absence, domestic violence, and verbal aggression, and the depressive symptoms severity measured by the CES-D-10 scale and a survey among Chinese adolescents aged between 10 and 18. It is hypothesized that the more parental maltreatment the participants experienced, the more severe depressive symptoms they displayed. Principal components that were extracted for each independent variable from the items in the survey were used in the Pearson correlational analysis and multiple regression analysis. The results suggest that parental maltreatments, including parental absence, domestic violence, and verbal aggression are scientifically significantly correlated with the CES-D-10 test scores of the participants. The more intimate the parent-child relationships are, the lower the CES-D-10 scores. The results of the multiple regression analysis indicate that the overall model is statistically significant, meaning that the set of independent variables significantly predicts the severity of depressive symptoms. This study contributes and provides data support on the topics of parental factors contributing to the increase in Chinese adolescents’ depression. Despite those contributions, it is essential to highlight the limitations, such as the influence of temporary factors on CES-D-10 scores and the potential lack of generalizability across different cultural contexts. Future research could focus on explaining individual differences in depressive symptoms using different measurement tools.
Keywords
CES-D-10 scale, depression, parental abuse, domestic violence, parental verbal aggression
[1]. American Psychiatric Association. (2024, April). What is depression. https://www.psychiatry.org/Patients-Families/Depression/What-Is-Depression
[2]. World Health Organization. (2023, March 31). Depressive disorder (depression). https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression
[3]. World Health Organization. (2022, March 2). Covid-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide. https://www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide
[4]. Shanghai Center of Biomedicine Development. (2023, October 4). Blue book on national depression (2022-2023): 50% of depression patients are students. ByDrug. https://bydrug.pharmcube.com/news/detail/233e0f10bc4c9337ac9ee758ebdc9a61
[5]. Chen, T., & Lv, P. (2017, March 1). Safeguarding children against domestic violence in China. The Asia Foundation. https://asiafoundation.org/2017/03/01/safeguarding-children-domestic-violence-china/
[6]. Yap, M. B. H., & Jorm, A. F. (2015). Parental factors associated with childhood anxiety, depression, and internalizing problems: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 175, 424-440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.01.050
[7]. Fry, D., McCoy, A., & Swales, D. (2012). The consequences of maltreatment on children’s lives: A systematic review of data from the East Asia and Pacific region. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 13(4), 209-233. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838012455873
[8]. Teicher, M. H., Samson, J. A., Polcari, A., & McGreenery, C. E. (2006). Sticks, stones, and hurtful words: Relative effects of various forms of childhood maltreatment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 163(6), 993-1000. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.2006.163.6.993
Cite this article
Zan,Y. (2025). The Correlation Between Parental Maltreatment and Depressive Symptoms Severity in Adolescents in the Chinese Context. Communications in Humanities Research,70,1-17.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).