Resilience as a mediator factor in the relationship between childhood trauma and mood disorder: A community sample of young adults

BACKGROUND: Studies on the field of mood disorders has mainly focusing on the risk factors associated to develop the illness or the clinical factors associated with the clinical progression. Less attention was given to factors such as resilience that may be associated with better outcomes in the course of mood disorders. In this study, we assessed the mediation effect of resilience on the relationship between childhood trauma and mood disorders, as well as the severity of depressive symptoms in a population-based sample. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study with a community sample of young adults with bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and community controls without any mood disorder. The trauma experiences during childhood were assessed by Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). The severity of depressive symptoms was assessed using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and to assess the resilience was used the Resilience Scale (RS-25). RESULTS: All subtypes of trauma were associated with both MDD and BD, however, only physical and emotional abuse differentiated BD from MDD subjects. Bootstrapping-enhanced mediation analyses indicated that resilience partly mediated the association of childhood trauma to both mood disorder and severity of depression. LIMITATION: The employed mediation analyses are cross-sectional in nature, which limits any firm conclusions regarding causality. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the clinical assumption that resilient subjects may be partly protected against the detrimental long-term effects of childhood trauma. This study provides important information regarding the relationships among childhood trauma, resilience, and mood disorder.