Depression and eating disorders following abuse in childhood in two generations of women

Abstract

The relation of sexual and physical abuse in childhood to subsequent depression and eating disorders was explored in a community sample of mothers and their teenage and young adult daughters respectively. It was hypothesized that age would be a moderating influence on diagnosis following abuse in that depression would be more common in the mothers and eating disorders more common in the daughters. Depression was more common in mothers than daughters, using Bedford College caseness criteria (Finlay-Jones, et al., 1980), but the difference decreased when Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC: Spitzer, Endicott & Robbins, 1978) were used. Bulimia was more common in the daughters using DSM-III criteria. Both physical and sexual abuse were associated with chronic and recurrent depression but not with single short episodes of depression in the mothers. However, the relationship of depression to abuse showed only a weak trend in the daughter sample. Both physical and sexual abuse were related to bulimia in the daughters, but not in the mothers, as only one mother had such a disorder.