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. 2025 May 13;15(1):16559.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-01689-6.

The mediating role of anxiety between child abuse and pain among a sample of Lebanese adults

Elie Kesrewani #  1 , Georgio Chammas #  1 , Diana Malaeb  2 , Fouad Sakr  3 , Mariam Dabbous  3 , Sami El Khatib  4   5 , Souheil Hallit  6   7   8 , Feten Fekih-Romdhane  9   10 , Sahar Obeid  11
Affiliations

The mediating role of anxiety between child abuse and pain among a sample of Lebanese adults

Elie Kesrewani et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience in response to a noxious stimulus. Nowadays, it is increasingly prevalent among adults and may be influenced by past experiences such as child abuse, trauma or psychiatric conditions like anxiety. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the mediating effect of anxiety between child abuse and pain among a sample of Lebanese adults. This cross-sectional study was conducted between March and April 2024. Participants were selected using a snowball sampling method from various Lebanese governorates, and completed a self-administered online questionnaire via Google Forms. All adults over the age of 18 were eligible to participate. The questionnaire included sociodemographic questions, the short form of McGill pain questionnaire, the generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7), and the child abuse self report scale (CASRS-12). A total of 507 Lebanese adults completed the questionnaire. The mean age was 26.80 ± 10.29 years and 73.2% were female. The results showed that anxiety partially mediated the association between child abuse and pain. Higher levels of child abuse were significantly associated with greater anxiety, which in turn was significantly associated with increased pain. Child abuse was directly associated with higher pain levels. The study highlights the relationship that child abuse has on pain in adults and its relationship with anxiety. Future research delving into the relationship between child abuse and chronic pain in adulthood is essential to better understand the underlying pathways and support effective prevention and intervention strategies.

Keywords: Anxiety; Child abuse; Pain.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The Lebanese International University’s School of Pharmacy ethics committee granted this study ethics permission (Reference number: 2024ERC-023-LIUSOP). When filling out the online form, each participant provided written informed consent. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations (in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki).

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
(a) Relation between child abuse and anxiety (R2 = .094); (b) Relation between anxiety and pain (R2 = .382); (c) Total effect of child abuse on pain (R2 = .201); (c’) Direct effect of child abuse on pain. Numbers are displayed as regression coefficients (standard error). ***p < 0.001.
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