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Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices

It is the purpose of child welfare practices to provide a protective environment for minors. However, welfare practices for children and adolescents have also been linked to a higher risk for maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation. Due to such early-life adversity, affected individuals often report a...

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Autores principales: Thoma, Myriam, Bernays, Florence, Eising, Carla, Maercker, Andreas, Rohner, Shauna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8680753/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.2079
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author Thoma, Myriam
Bernays, Florence
Eising, Carla
Maercker, Andreas
Rohner, Shauna
author_facet Thoma, Myriam
Bernays, Florence
Eising, Carla
Maercker, Andreas
Rohner, Shauna
author_sort Thoma, Myriam
collection PubMed
description It is the purpose of child welfare practices to provide a protective environment for minors. However, welfare practices for children and adolescents have also been linked to a higher risk for maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation. Due to such early-life adversity, affected individuals often report a life course depicted by further trauma, socio-economic disadvantage, mental and physical ill-health. Examination of the long-term health correlates of enforced child welfare practices, as well as potential mediators, have previously been neglected in later life. It was therefore the purpose of these studies to examine the long-term correlates of enforced child welfare practices; the associated maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation; and the physical and mental health outcomes in Swiss older survivors (n=132, MAGE=71 years) and an age-matched control group (n=125). These studies further examined the mediating role of socio-economic factors (e.g., education, income), self-esteem, and self-compassion. Mental health was assessed with a structured clinical interview; physical health, self-esteem, and self-compassion with psychometric instruments. Survivors reported significantly more types and severity of childhood maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation than the control group. They also reported significantly more lifetime and current mental health disorders and more physical illnesses. Socio-economic factors and self-esteem, but not self-compassion, acted as significant mediators. Exposure to maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation in childhood and adolescence is linked to poorer mental and physical health in later life. Potential targets for intervention and health-protective measures include socio-economic factors and self-esteem, which were found to diminish the detrimental long-term impact of early-life adversity and disadvantage into later life.
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spelling pubmed-86807532021-12-17 Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices Thoma, Myriam Bernays, Florence Eising, Carla Maercker, Andreas Rohner, Shauna Innov Aging Abstracts It is the purpose of child welfare practices to provide a protective environment for minors. However, welfare practices for children and adolescents have also been linked to a higher risk for maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation. Due to such early-life adversity, affected individuals often report a life course depicted by further trauma, socio-economic disadvantage, mental and physical ill-health. Examination of the long-term health correlates of enforced child welfare practices, as well as potential mediators, have previously been neglected in later life. It was therefore the purpose of these studies to examine the long-term correlates of enforced child welfare practices; the associated maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation; and the physical and mental health outcomes in Swiss older survivors (n=132, MAGE=71 years) and an age-matched control group (n=125). These studies further examined the mediating role of socio-economic factors (e.g., education, income), self-esteem, and self-compassion. Mental health was assessed with a structured clinical interview; physical health, self-esteem, and self-compassion with psychometric instruments. Survivors reported significantly more types and severity of childhood maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation than the control group. They also reported significantly more lifetime and current mental health disorders and more physical illnesses. Socio-economic factors and self-esteem, but not self-compassion, acted as significant mediators. Exposure to maltreatment, trauma, and deprivation in childhood and adolescence is linked to poorer mental and physical health in later life. Potential targets for intervention and health-protective measures include socio-economic factors and self-esteem, which were found to diminish the detrimental long-term impact of early-life adversity and disadvantage into later life. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8680753/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.2079 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Thoma, Myriam
Bernays, Florence
Eising, Carla
Maercker, Andreas
Rohner, Shauna
Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices
title Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices
title_full Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices
title_fullStr Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices
title_full_unstemmed Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices
title_short Mental and Physical Health in Swiss Older Survivors of Enforced Child Welfare Practices
title_sort mental and physical health in swiss older survivors of enforced child welfare practices
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8680753/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.2079
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