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Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda
BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment poses high risks to the mental health and cognitive functioning of children not only in childhood but also in later life. However, it remains unclear whether child maltreatment is directly associated with impaired cognitive functioning or whether this link is mediated...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8091686/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33941232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-021-00373-7 |
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author | Ainamani, Herbert E. Rukundo, Godfrey Z. Nduhukire, Timothy Ndyareba, Eunice Hecker, Tobias |
author_facet | Ainamani, Herbert E. Rukundo, Godfrey Z. Nduhukire, Timothy Ndyareba, Eunice Hecker, Tobias |
author_sort | Ainamani, Herbert E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment poses high risks to the mental health and cognitive functioning of children not only in childhood but also in later life. However, it remains unclear whether child maltreatment is directly associated with impaired cognitive functioning or whether this link is mediated by mental health problems. Our study aimed at examining this research question among children and adolescents in Uganda. METHODS: A sample of 232 school-going children and adolescents with a mean age of 14.03 (SD = 3.25) was assessed on multiple forms of maltreatment using the Maltreatment and Abuse Chronology Exposure—Pediatric Version (pediMACE). Executive functions were assessed by the Tower of London task and working memory by the Corsi Block Tapping task, while mental health problems were assessed using the Child PTSD Symptom Scale for PTSD and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC). RESULTS: In total, 232 (100%) of the participant reported to have experienced at least one type of maltreatment in their lifetime including emotional, physical, and sexual violence as well as neglect. We found a negative association between child maltreatment and executive functions (β = − 0.487, p < 0.001) and working memory (β = − 0.242, p = 0.001). Mental health problems did not mediate this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Child maltreatment seems to be related to lower working memory and executive functioning of affected children and adolescents even after controlling for potential cofounders. Our study indicates that child maltreatment the affects children’s cognitive functionality beyond health and well-being. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13034-021-00373-7. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8091686 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80916862021-05-04 Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda Ainamani, Herbert E. Rukundo, Godfrey Z. Nduhukire, Timothy Ndyareba, Eunice Hecker, Tobias Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment poses high risks to the mental health and cognitive functioning of children not only in childhood but also in later life. However, it remains unclear whether child maltreatment is directly associated with impaired cognitive functioning or whether this link is mediated by mental health problems. Our study aimed at examining this research question among children and adolescents in Uganda. METHODS: A sample of 232 school-going children and adolescents with a mean age of 14.03 (SD = 3.25) was assessed on multiple forms of maltreatment using the Maltreatment and Abuse Chronology Exposure—Pediatric Version (pediMACE). Executive functions were assessed by the Tower of London task and working memory by the Corsi Block Tapping task, while mental health problems were assessed using the Child PTSD Symptom Scale for PTSD and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC). RESULTS: In total, 232 (100%) of the participant reported to have experienced at least one type of maltreatment in their lifetime including emotional, physical, and sexual violence as well as neglect. We found a negative association between child maltreatment and executive functions (β = − 0.487, p < 0.001) and working memory (β = − 0.242, p = 0.001). Mental health problems did not mediate this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Child maltreatment seems to be related to lower working memory and executive functioning of affected children and adolescents even after controlling for potential cofounders. Our study indicates that child maltreatment the affects children’s cognitive functionality beyond health and well-being. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13034-021-00373-7. BioMed Central 2021-04-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8091686/ /pubmed/33941232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-021-00373-7 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 Article Ainamani, Herbert E. Rukundo, Godfrey Z. Nduhukire, Timothy Ndyareba, Eunice Hecker, Tobias Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda |
title | Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda |
title_full | Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda |
title_fullStr | Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda |
title_full_unstemmed | Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda |
title_short | Child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in Uganda |
title_sort | child maltreatment, cognitive functions and the mediating role of mental health problems among maltreated children and adolescents in uganda |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8091686/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33941232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-021-00373-7 |
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