Patterns of Mother, Father, and Peer Attachment Quality as Moderators of Child Maltreatment Risk for Depression and PTSD Symptoms in Adolescent Females

“Global model fit for the SEM was evaluated with guidelines presented by Hu and Bentler (1999).”

“When a variable can be positioned as either a mediator or moderator, it is recommended that selection should be guided by the goal of the research question (Baron & Kenny, 1986; MacKinnon, 2011).”

“Multi-wave longitudinal models that can assess the influence of CM, attachment, and their interaction on psychopathology, while controlling for preexisting levels of symptomatology, are considered most desirable (Cohen & Wills, 1985).”

“Missing data for endogenous variables were estimated as a function of 6898 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(9-10) exogenous variables based on the missing at random assumption (Schafer & Graham, 2002) using full-information maximum likelihood estimation (FIML; Muthén & Muthén, 2019).”

“Many survivors of CM display resilience throughout development (Masten, 2001), indicating that many youths exposed to CM have access to protective factors that buffer against the mental health consequences of CM.”

“The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck et al., 1996) is a commonly used 21-item self-report measure of depressive symptoms.”

“In line with Bowlby’s attachment theory, the inventory of parent and peer attachment (IPPA; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) was developed to probe the general affective/cognitive dimensions attachment (e.g., adolescents’ internal working models) and measure psychological security derived from…”

“Yet, in accord with the concept of multifinality (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996), there are considerable individual differences within samples of maltreated youth with regards to the extent to which they manifest risk for psychopathology (e.g., PTSD, depression).”

“The BDI-II has good psychometric properties, including test–-retest reliability scores ranging from 0.73 to 0.96 and strong convergent validity with other depression measures (Wang & Gorenstein, 2013).”

“Considering the prevalence of adolescent psychopathology and the reality that approximately 50% of depression/PTSD cases are attributable to CM exposure (Teicher & Samson, 2016), a more precise understanding of how attachment relationships may protect vulnerable youth is warranted.”

“…CM; (b) used a variable-centered approach to examine separate effects of relationships with attachment figures; and (c) did not include depression and PTSD symptoms in the same model, which may conflate findings given their high rates of comorbidity in maltreated samples (O’Donnell et al., 2004).”

“Once the best-fitting class solution was chosen, we used a three-step approach (Lanza et al., 2013) to examine CM × Attachment Profile interactions on depression and PTSD outcomes within a larger SEM framework.”

“It is believed that CM exposure accounts for over 50% of the attributable risk for depression (Li et al., 2016).”

“…of fluctuating attachment needs and expanding relational networks, and nonconvergent profiles may indicate situations where adolescents are having difficulty balancing multiple relationships (Jager, 2011) or are in the process of shifting their primary attachment figures (Allen & Manning, 2007).”

“…more likely to turn to mothers to regulate their negative emotions, hold themselves more accountable for the quality of mother–child relationships, and are strongly sensitized to interpersonal stresses (Allen & Tan, 2016; Hilt & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2009; Nolen-Hoeksema & Jackson, 2001; Rudolph, 2009).”

“Child maltreatment (CM) is a pervasive public health issue with overwhelming long-term consequences for mental health (Jaffee, 2017).”

“Due to the high co-occurrence across all subtypes of CM (Vachon et al., 2015), we elected to operationalize CM as a variable representing the cumulative number of subtypes to which an adolescent was exposed, ranging from 0 (no CM exposure) to 4 (exposure to four subtypes).”

“When a variable can be positioned as either a mediator or moderator, it is recommended that selection should be guided by the goal of the research question (Baron & Kenny, 1986; MacKinnon, 2011).”

“The Child’s Report of Parental Behavior Inventory—Revised (CRPBI; Schludermann & Schludermann, 1970) was used to assess levels of parental warmth and control as study covariates at baseline assessment.”

“The Comprehensive Trauma Interview (CTI; Noll et al., 2003), a semi-structured interview assessing traumatic life events and subjective responses to those events, was used to assess PTSD symptoms.”

“Indeed, for many racial and ethnic minority youth, existing social networks such as community and faith-based supports (Taylor et al., 2013) may be called upon to bolster attachment lacking from mother and father figures.”

“However, we were unable to formally test gender differences in our female sample, so we cannot determine if our findings are unique to female adolescents or universal to maltreated youth, regardless of gender identity (Gallo et al., 2018).”

“Second, our person-centered approach to assessing attachment networks was not exhaustive and our conceptualization of attachment, which includes sensitive, child-centered parenting, is inherently Western (Keller, 2018), and not necessarily generalizable to cultural and contextual variations of attachment processes (Co…”

“As reviewed, a small set of studies has contributed to our understanding of how attachment quality may mitigate the effects of CM on depression and PTSD symptoms in adolescence (Alink et al., 2009; Aspelmeier et al., 2007; Chesmore et al., 2017; Jardin et al., 2017; Nowalis et al., 2022; Toth & Cicchetti, 1996).”

“As reviewed, a small set of studies has contributed to our understanding of how attachment quality may mitigate the effects of CM on depression and PTSD symptoms in adolescence (Alink et al., 2009; Aspelmeier et al., 2007; Chesmore et al., 2017; Jardin et al., 2017; Nowalis et al., 2022; Toth & Cicchetti, 1996).”

“Population estimates suggest that ~ 50% of youth psychological disorders are attributable to CM, highlighting the fact that there may be no greater single predictor of such difficulties (Zeanah & Humphreys, 2018).”

“Others have found support for a buffering effect, such that CM survivors with less secure parental attachments (vs. secure) exhibit greater symptoms of PTSD and depression (Alink et al., 2009; Jardin et al., 2017; Toth & Cicchetti, 1996).”

“Retrospective reports of CM are open to several potential biases and sources of measurement error, including higher rates of false negatives, false recall, after-the-fact assignment of meaning to memories, and shared method variance (Widom, 2014).”

“It is important to note that attachment quality with parents and peers has been posited as both a mediator and moderator in the association between CM and psychopathology (Cicchetti & Toth, 2016).”

“These findings support the continued use of clinical interventions that promote healthy attachments and address interpersonal functioning to mitigate the impact of CM on depressive symptoms (Toth et al., 2010, 2013), with an emphasis on maternal-adolescent attachment quality.”

“…ethnically and racially diverse adolescents 6908 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(9-10) (Gibson et al., 2022), family-centered interventions that are explicitly designed to be culturally informed should be considered (e.g., Strong African American Families-Teen program; Brody et al., 2012).”

“Data were obtained from the Female Adolescent Development Study (years 2008–2013), a prospective, longitudinal cohort study of 514 racially/ethnically diverse adolescent females (15–19 years) designed to examine the impact of CM on biopsychosocial development in females (Noll & Shenk, 2013).”

“Furthermore, youth with minority gender identities are not represented in the current study, yet experience higher rates of CM (Thoma et al., 2021) and mental health issues (Fox et al., 2020).”

“This is consistent with a growing body of literature demonstrating the salience of interpersonal relationships in the development of depression for adolescent females (Lewis et al., 2015), including those with maltreatment histories (Alto et al.”

“Notably, relationship profiles tend to be stable in adolescents (e.g., Laursen et al., 2006).”

“Furthermore, youth with minority gender identities are not represented in the current study, yet experience higher rates of CM (Thoma et al., 2021) and mental health issues (Fox et al.”

“Studies have demonstrated how these relatively short-term (~15 weeks) interventions can be flexibly delivered by trained clinicians in a variety of settings (e.g., home, school, or clinical) to reach CM survivors (e.g., Ewing et al., 2015; Toth et al., 2020).”

“Our results align with recent efforts to utilize targeted intervention to identify and deliver services to subgroups of individuals who are at relatively high-risk based characteristics of the group (Dodge, 2020).”

“IPPA scales evidence adequate reliability 6896 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(9-10) (Sternberg et al., 2005) in the literature and in this sample (α = .70– .90).”

“, 2015), including those with maltreatment histories (Alto et al., 2018).”

“The maternal attachment system is a robust predictor of developmental outcomes in maltreated samples, specifically (Valentino, 2017).”

“For example, interpersonal psychotherapy for adolescents (Mufson & Sills, 2006), focuses on addressing challenges within the interpersonal context to treat depression and has been found to be particularly effective for adolescent females with CM histories (Toth et al., 2020).”

“Procedures were in place to address CM contamination in the comparison sample (Shenk et al., 2016), including consent to access and”

“Further, very little is known about how CM predicts heterogeneous patterns of attachment within interpersonal networks (Negriff et al., 2015).”

“Based on previous person-centered analyses of relationship profiles among adolescents (Ciarrochi et al., 2017; Cohen et al., 2015; Jager, 2011), we expect to find two convergent profiles, including at least one profile characterized by quality”

“Investigations that have previously considered the CM-buffering effects of multiple attachment figures have exclusively studied their separate or relative effects via variable-centered approaches (Wright & Folger, 2017).”

“The IPPA is the most frequently cited measure of adolescent attachment, has been demonstrated to be a valid measure of adolescent attachment, and reliably predicts adolescent adjustment (Wilson & Wilkinson, 2012).”

“(Gibson et al., 2022), family-centered interventions that are explicitly designed to be culturally informed should be considered (e.”

“Despite the existence of evidence-based relational interventions designed for depressive symptoms, surprisingly few adolescent survivors of CM receive and complete treatment (Self-Brown et al., 2012).”

“Attachment quality is associated with less anxiety and depression in maltreated youth (promotive effect; Chesmore et al., 2017).”

“It is noteworthy that moderation findings were unique to depressive symptoms, given that previous studies have found support for the moderating role of attachment security in the association between CM and PTSD symptoms (Aspelmeier et al., 2007; Jardin et al., 2017).”

“…of fluctuating attachment needs and expanding relational networks, and nonconvergent profiles may indicate situations where adolescents are having difficulty balancing multiple relationships (Jager, 2011) or are in the process of shifting their primary attachment figures (Allen & Manning, 2007).”

“Testing our person-centered profiles as moderators of depression treatment outcomes may be a logical next step, given the role that family relationships and CM play in treatment response (Toth et al., 2020).”

“the associations between CM, interpersonal functioning, and mental health (Negriff et al., 2019).”

“For example, among college students, CM predicted depressive symptoms for those exhibiting an anxious attachment to a primary caregiver (but not for the secondary caregiver; Nowalis et al., 2022).”

“Further, mother–adolescent conflict, which is not synonymous with attachment quality, enhances the risk for internalizing symptoms in maltreated female youth (Handley et al., 2019).”

“Additionally, the studies [37,50,51] also contribute to this aspect of PTSD treatment.”

“Additional studies with adolescents (Russotti et al., 2023) and adults (Kamperman et al., 2020) have also documented pro fi le heterogeneity across fi gures.”

“Several existing studies have applied LPA to explore how parent attachment subtypes influence parenting behaviors, focusing on adolescent developmental trajectories (Li et al., 2023; Russotti et al., 2023).”

“This outcome is consistent with recent investigations that have applied latent profile analysis to identify multiple bonding patterns and their links to adjustment and mental health in adolescence, such as He et al. (2018), Gao et al. (2024), Russotti et al. (2023), and Withers (2020).”

“This resonates with prior evidence that when parents or other adults in children’s life such as teachers and other school staff in authoritative positions behave harshly or strictly, it increases the risk of mental ill-health among children [54].”