Flowers in the attic – adverse childhood experiences and their relations with life-outcome

Abstract

This is an introductory abstract for other papers within this symposium, which are all part of the same study, Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) in Serbia. ACE is a traumatic experience in one’s life occurring before the age of 18 that the person remembers as an adult. The purpose of this survey was to explore the prevalence of ACEs and their correlates on a sample of 18-65 years old in Serbia. We used multistage random sampling, with a stratified cluster sample in the first (187 settlements were sampled from 4 regions), and random sample in the second stage (a random-walk technique for sampling participants). The final sample consisted of 2792 respondents (57.4% females), interviewed face-to-face. Instrument package included: ACE International Questionnaire, Health Appraisal, Family Health History, Trauma Symptom Checklist, Benevolent Childhood experience, Experiences in Close Relationships- Revised, HEXACO, DELTA9, and Non-suicidal self-injury. Each ACE was represented by a binary score, in two ways: (1) any ACE score implies that participant had a specific event at least “once or twice”; (2) frequent ACE implies that participant had specific events “many times”. Factor analysis, principal axis with varimax rotation extracted three dimensions: violence (involvement in physical fight, bullying, community violence, physical abuse, collective violence, psychological abuse), neglect (depression in family, suicide in family, psychological neglect, sexual abuse and parental separation) and abuse (alcoholism in family, abuse of mother or father by the partner, incarceration of family member, drug abuse in family and physical neglect). If we use ACEs as predictors of various life events in multiple regression analysis, the highest prediction is gained for a number of suicidal attempts (R2 = .53, F = 2.38; df = 17, 36; p < 0.05) - more ACEs lead to more attempts, with psychological neglect as strongest predictor. Most frequent ACEs in Serbia are community violence (any 69.4%; frequent 37.7%), psychological abuse (any 43.7%; frequent 26.3%), and involvement in a physical fight (any 37.7%; frequent 19.7%). For comparison, physical abuse and domestic violence appeared more frequently in Serbia than in Wales study, while parent separation and sexual abuse appeared a bit more frequently in Wales sample. Possible higher prevalence of This is an introductory abstract for other papers within this symposium, which are all part of the same study, Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) in Serbia. ACE is a traumatic experience in one’s life occurring before the age of 18 that the person remembers as an adult. The purpose of this survey was to explore the prevalence of ACEs and their correlates on a sample of 18-65 years old in Serbia. We used multistage random sampling, with a stratified cluster sample in the first (187 settlements were sampled from 4 regions), and random sample in the second stage (a random-walk technique for sampling participants). The final sample consisted of 2792 respondents (57.4% females), interviewed face-to-face. Instrument package included: ACE International Questionnaire, Health Appraisal, Family Health History, Trauma Symptom Checklist, Benevolent Childhood experience, Experiences in Close Relationships- Revised, HEXACO, DELTA9, and Non-suicidal self-injury. Each ACE was represented by a binary score, in two ways: (1) any ACE score implies that participant had a specific event at least “once or twice”; (2) frequent ACE implies that participant had specific events “many times”. Factor analysis, principal axis with varimax rotation extracted three dimensions: violence (involvement in physical fight, bullying, community violence, physical abuse, collective violence, psychological abuse), neglect (depression in family, suicide in family, psychological neglect, sexual abuse and parental separation) and abuse (alcoholism in family, abuse of mother or father by the partner, incarceration of family member, drug abuse in family and physical neglect). If we use ACEs as predictors of various life events in multiple regression analysis, the highest prediction is gained for a number of suicidal attempts (R2 = .53, F = 2.38; df = 17, 36; p < 0.05) - more ACEs lead to more attempts, with psychological neglect as strongest predictor. Most frequent ACEs in Serbia are community violence (any 69.4%; frequent 37.7%), psychological abuse (any 43.7%; frequent 26.3%), and involvement in a physical fight (any 37.7%; frequent 19.7%). For comparison, physical abuse and domestic violence appeared more frequently in Serbia than in Wales study, while parent separation and sexual abuse appeared a bit more frequently in Wales sample. Possible higher prevalence of This is an introductory abstract for other papers within this symposium, which are all part of the same study, Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) in Serbia. ACE is a traumatic experience in one’s life occurring before the age of 18 that the person remembers as an adult. The purpose of this survey was to explore the prevalence of ACEs and their correlates on a sample of 18-65 years old in Serbia. We used multistage random sampling, with a stratified cluster sample in the first (187 settlements were sampled from 4 regions), and random sample in the second stage (a random-walk technique for sampling participants). The final sample consisted of 2792 respondents (57.4% females), interviewed face-to-face. Instrument package included: ACE International Questionnaire, Health Appraisal, Family Health History, Trauma Symptom Checklist, Benevolent Childhood experience, Experiences in Close Relationships- Revised, HEXACO, DELTA9, and Non-suicidal self-injury. Each ACE was represented by a binary score, in two ways: (1) any ACE score implies that participant had a specific event at least “once or twice”; (2) frequent ACE implies that participant had specific events “many times”. Factor analysis, principal axis with varimax rotation extracted three dimensions: violence (involvement in physical fight, bullying, community violence, physical abuse, collective violence, psychological abuse), neglect (depression in family, suicide in family, psychological neglect, sexual abuse and parental separation) and abuse (alcoholism in family, abuse of mother or father by the partner, incarceration of family member, drug abuse in family and physical neglect). If we use ACEs as predictors of various life events in multiple regression analysis, the highest prediction is gained for a number of suicidal attempts (R2 = .53, F = 2.38; df = 17, 36; p < 0.05) - more ACEs lead to more attempts, with psychological neglect as strongest predictor. Most frequent ACEs in Serbia are community violence (any 69.4%; frequent 37.7%), psychological abuse (any 43.7%; frequent 26.3%), and involvement in a physical fight (any 37.7%; frequent 19.7%). For comparison, physical abuse and domestic violence appeared more frequently in Serbia than in Wales study, while parent separation and sexual abuse appeared a bit more frequently in Wales sample. Possible higher prevalence of ACEs in our study might occur due to the context of the collective experience of wars, civil unrest, insecurity, etc.