Original title: The Impact of Child Maltreatment on Emotional Regulation, Impulsivity, and Neurocognition in Patients with Bipolar Disorder
The researchers studied people with type I bipolar disorder who were not in an active mood episode. They compared reports of childhood maltreatment with scores for emotion regulation, impulsivity, and thinking skills. Emotional abuse and emotional neglect were linked to more difficulty managing emotions; emotional neglect was also linked to higher impulsivity, and physical abuse to slightly lower scores on one thinking test. These are associations, not proof that maltreatment caused the differences.
Imagine trying to keep calm while doing chores after a hard day. It can be difficult to manage your reactions, and one rough moment does not tell you exactly why. In this paper, the chores stand for managing emotions, while people’s reports of childhood experiences are compared with their current scores; the comparison shows links, not what caused them.
For people with bipolar disorder, childhood emotional neglect may be related to difficulties managing emotions even during a period without an active mood episode. The findings may help researchers identify which aspects of psychological functioning deserve closer study, but they do not show that maltreatment caused these difficulties.
The study examines associations, so it cannot establish that childhood maltreatment caused the measured differences or clarify their timing. Its findings concern euthymic individuals with bipolar I disorder. The authors say larger longitudinal studies are needed; sensitivity-analysis findings using high/low maltreatment categories did not remain significant after FDR correction.
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The Impact of Child Maltreatment on Emotional Regulation, Impulsivity, and Neurocognition in Patients with Bipolar Disorder — Valentina García, Miguel Zapata, Javiera Sánchez et al. — Psychiatry International — doi:10.3390/psychiatryint7050223
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.