Childhood maltreatment and poor functional outcomes at the transition to adulthood: a comparison of prospective informant- and retrospective self-reports of maltreatment

Abstract

Purpose: Growing evidence suggests that prospective informant-reports and retrospective self-reports of childhood maltreatment may be differentially associated with adult psychopathology. However, it remains unknown how associations for these two maltreatment reporting types compare when considering functional outcomes. The present study compared associations between childhood maltreatment and functional outcomes at age 18 years using these two methods.

Methods: We used data from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally representative birth cohort of 2232 children born in England and Wales in 1994-1995. Maltreatment prior to age 12 years was assessed prospectively (during multiple home visits between birth and age of 12 years based on interviews with caregivers, researcher observations, and information from practitioners where child protection referrals were made) and retrospectively (at age 18 via self-report on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire). Nine functional outcomes were measured at age 18, forming two variables capturing: (i) psychosocial and (ii) vocational disadvantage.

Results: Among the 2054 participants with available data, childhood maltreatment was associated with poorer functional outcomes regardless of whether this was reported only prospectively, only retrospectively, or both. Stronger associations with psychosocial disadvantage arose in the context of retrospective recall by participants (OR = 8.25, 95% CI 4.93-13.82) than prospective reports by informants (OR = 2.03, 95% CI 1.36-3.04) of maltreatment. Conversely, associations with vocational disadvantage were comparable for both prospective informant-reports (OR = 2.19, 95% CI 1.42-3.38) and retrospective self-reports (OR = 1.93, 95% CI 1.33-2.81) of maltreatment.

Conclusion: Results highlight the importance of considering the maltreatment report type used when interpreting the functional consequences of childhood maltreatment.

Keywords: Child abuse; Functioning; Maltreatment; Measurement; Neglect; Reporting method.

Fig. 1

Prevalence of childhood maltreatment in the E-Risk Study according to prospective informant- and retrospective self-reports. Multiple maltreatment refers to experiencing two or more forms of maltreatment. (The E-Risk Study childhood maltreatment prevalence rates have been reported previously in Newbury et al. [20])

Fig. 2

Venn diagram showing the overlap between participants exposed to any maltreatment identified by prospective informant-report and retrospective self-report measures. The light circle indicates retrospectively reported maltreatment whereas the dark circle indicates prospectively reported maltreatment. The light non-overlapping section (retrospective only) shows the number of participants who retrospectively reported a history of childhood maltreatment but were not prospectively identified as experiencing maltreatment. The dark non-overlapping section (prospective only) shows the number of participants who were prospectively reported as experiencing maltreatment in childhood but did not retrospectively self-report this maltreatment history. The overlap between the two circles shows the number of maltreated participants whose exposure was reported both prospectively and retrospectively