Cargando…
Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study
BACKGROUND: Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) constitutes public health problems linked to adverse mental outcomes such as psychological distress during adulthood. This study examines the prevalence of ACEs and psychological distress and explores the association between ACEs and psych...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8086118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33926542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00587-3 |
_version_ | 1783686461337370624 |
---|---|
author | Agbaje, Olaoluwa Samson Nnaji, Chinwe Patience Nwagu, Evelyn Nwanabe Iweama, Cylia Nkechi Umoke, Prince Christian Ifeanachor Ozoemena, Lawretta Eyuche Abba, Charles Chike |
author_facet | Agbaje, Olaoluwa Samson Nnaji, Chinwe Patience Nwagu, Evelyn Nwanabe Iweama, Cylia Nkechi Umoke, Prince Christian Ifeanachor Ozoemena, Lawretta Eyuche Abba, Charles Chike |
author_sort | Agbaje, Olaoluwa Samson |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) constitutes public health problems linked to adverse mental outcomes such as psychological distress during adulthood. This study examines the prevalence of ACEs and psychological distress and explores the association between ACEs and psychological distress and demographic factors among young adults. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 330 students from May 2018 to July 2018. The participants completed the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ), Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), and the sociodemographic profile scale. We used descriptive statistics to describe the prevalence of ACEs and psychological distress in our sample. After adjusting for the demographic covariates, ACEs’ association with psychological distress was determined using binary and multivariate logistic regressions. RESULTS: A total of 203 students with a mean age of 20.76 ± 2.73 years completed the study. The total mean ACE score was 4.58 ± 1.59, and the total mean psychological distress score was 20.76 ± 6.31. Most of the participants (86.7%) experienced ACEs, 14.8% reported experiencing one ACE, 30.5% reported experiencing 2–3 ACEs, and 41.3% reported experiencing 4+ ACEs. Further, about 85% of the youth have experienced at least one form of sexual abuse during childhood, and females reported a higher number of ACEs than males. Sexual abuse (OR = 2.36; 95% CI: 2.36, 7.65), physical neglect (OR = 2.87; 95% CI: 1.57, 5.31), overall ACE exposure (OR = 6.66; 95% CI: 2.41, 18.42), having 1 ACE (OR = 4.40; 95% CI: 1.32, 14.70), having 2–3 ACEs (OR = 4.13; 95% CI: 1.39, 12.29), and having 4+ (OR = 11.67; 95% CI: 3.95, 34.45) were significantly associated with psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: ACEs are prevalent among young adults and are associated with psychological distress in adulthood. Furthermore, parental factors are associated with ACEs and psychological distress. Thus, implementation of school, community-and facility-based routine mental health screening programs is essential for prompt identification, prevention, and treatment of youth with childhood adversities and poor mental health outcomes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13690-021-00587-3. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8086118 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80861182021-04-30 Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study Agbaje, Olaoluwa Samson Nnaji, Chinwe Patience Nwagu, Evelyn Nwanabe Iweama, Cylia Nkechi Umoke, Prince Christian Ifeanachor Ozoemena, Lawretta Eyuche Abba, Charles Chike Arch Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) constitutes public health problems linked to adverse mental outcomes such as psychological distress during adulthood. This study examines the prevalence of ACEs and psychological distress and explores the association between ACEs and psychological distress and demographic factors among young adults. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 330 students from May 2018 to July 2018. The participants completed the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ), Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), and the sociodemographic profile scale. We used descriptive statistics to describe the prevalence of ACEs and psychological distress in our sample. After adjusting for the demographic covariates, ACEs’ association with psychological distress was determined using binary and multivariate logistic regressions. RESULTS: A total of 203 students with a mean age of 20.76 ± 2.73 years completed the study. The total mean ACE score was 4.58 ± 1.59, and the total mean psychological distress score was 20.76 ± 6.31. Most of the participants (86.7%) experienced ACEs, 14.8% reported experiencing one ACE, 30.5% reported experiencing 2–3 ACEs, and 41.3% reported experiencing 4+ ACEs. Further, about 85% of the youth have experienced at least one form of sexual abuse during childhood, and females reported a higher number of ACEs than males. Sexual abuse (OR = 2.36; 95% CI: 2.36, 7.65), physical neglect (OR = 2.87; 95% CI: 1.57, 5.31), overall ACE exposure (OR = 6.66; 95% CI: 2.41, 18.42), having 1 ACE (OR = 4.40; 95% CI: 1.32, 14.70), having 2–3 ACEs (OR = 4.13; 95% CI: 1.39, 12.29), and having 4+ (OR = 11.67; 95% CI: 3.95, 34.45) were significantly associated with psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: ACEs are prevalent among young adults and are associated with psychological distress in adulthood. Furthermore, parental factors are associated with ACEs and psychological distress. Thus, implementation of school, community-and facility-based routine mental health screening programs is essential for prompt identification, prevention, and treatment of youth with childhood adversities and poor mental health outcomes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13690-021-00587-3. BioMed Central 2021-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8086118/ /pubmed/33926542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00587-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Agbaje, Olaoluwa Samson Nnaji, Chinwe Patience Nwagu, Evelyn Nwanabe Iweama, Cylia Nkechi Umoke, Prince Christian Ifeanachor Ozoemena, Lawretta Eyuche Abba, Charles Chike Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
title | Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
title_full | Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr | Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed | Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
title_short | Adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in Southeast Nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
title_sort | adverse childhood experiences and psychological distress among higher education students in southeast nigeria: an institutional-based cross-sectional study |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8086118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33926542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00587-3 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT agbajeolaoluwasamson adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy AT nnajichinwepatience adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy AT nwaguevelynnwanabe adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy AT iweamacyliankechi adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy AT umokeprincechristianifeanachor adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy AT ozoemenalawrettaeyuche adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy AT abbacharleschike adversechildhoodexperiencesandpsychologicaldistressamonghighereducationstudentsinsoutheastnigeriaaninstitutionalbasedcrosssectionalstudy |