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. 2023 Nov 28;36(1):37.
doi: 10.1186/s41155-023-00273-z.

Adverse childhood experiences and psychopathology in adolescents from northern Chile: the moderating role of the attachment style

Cristián Pinto-Cortez  1 , Gabriel Peñaloza-Díaz  2   3 , Nicole Martínez  1 , Sussan Díaz  1 , Nicolle Valdovino  1 , Margariett Zavala  1 , Paola Muzatto-Negrón  1 , Pamela Zapata-Sepúlveda  1
Affiliations

Adverse childhood experiences and psychopathology in adolescents from northern Chile: the moderating role of the attachment style

Cristián Pinto-Cortez et al. Psicol Reflex Crit. .

Abstract

Background: Identifying the underlying mechanisms through which adverse childhood experiences affect (ACEs) the mental health of adolescents is of paramount importance for disease prevention in later stages of life.

Objective: The present study examines the relationship between ACEs and psychopathology in adolescents from northern Chile and how attachment style (abandonment anxiety and intimacy avoidance) may moderate this relationship. A total of 154 schooled adolescents aged 12 to 17 (M = 15.08, SD = 1.64) completed a series of self-report questionnaires including the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire (ACEs), Experiences in Close Relationships- Relationship Structures (ECR-RS), and Youth Self Report (YSR-18).

Results: The data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 25, which included descriptive analysis, one-way ANOVA, and Spearman correlation analysis. To address moderation analysis, the PROCESS macro extension version 4.1 was employed. In this process, the bootstrap method was applied to construct confidence intervals, and the pick-a-point approach was used to define the levels of the moderating variable. According to the results, 80.3% of the sample experienced one or more ACEs, and 16.4% reported experiencing at least three. Furthermore, the variables under study exhibited significant correlations with each other, except for intimacy avoidance, which showed no correlation with ACEs (rho = -0.10; p = 0.273). When considering abandonment anxiety as a moderating variable, the direct effect of ACEs on externalizing symptoms showed statistically significant changes (β = 0.60, p = 0.03). No other moderating effects were found according to the proposed models.

Conclusion: In childhood, the accumulation of ACEs is associated with the development of psychopathology in adolescents from northern Chile, specifically with the presence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. These findings suggest that lower levels of abandonment anxiety could mitigate the effects of ACEs on adolescent psychopathology, while higher levels of abandonment anxiety could exacerbate these effects on psychopathology.

Keywords: Adolescence; Adverse childhood experiences; Attachment style; Chile; Externalizing symptoms; Internalizing symptoms.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Bartholomew’s four-category model of attachment (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) based on Ma (2006)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Moderation diagrams showing the effect between ACEs and internalizing symptoms moderated by a abandonment anxiety or b intimacy avoidance and the effect between ACEs and externalizing symptoms moderated by c abandonment anxiety or d intimacy avoidance
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Graphic of the conditional effect of abandonment anxiety levels (low, medium, and high) on the relationship between ACEs and externalizing symptoms
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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