Moderating effect of left-behind childhood on the relationship between childhood abuse and adult security

Objective To explore the relationship between childhood abuse and adult security and the moderating effect of left-behind childhood,and to provide a reference for improving mental health of the college students.Methods A total of 1 151 freshmen were selected from University of Hunan Chinese Medicine by Convenience sampling method,and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) and Security Questionnaire (SQ) were used to measure students' psychological and behavioral characteristics.Results Compared to the non-trauma group,the early childhood trauma group had lower scores in sense of interpersonal security and the sense of control,and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05).Interpersonal security was negatively related to emotional abuse,physical abuse,sexual abuse,emotional neglect,and physical neglect (r =-0.295,-0.127,-0.132,-0.252,-0.196,P<0.05),the sense of control was negatively related to emotional abuse,physical abuse,sexual abuse,emotional neglect,and physical neglect (r =-0.311,-0.138,-0.115,-0.205,-0.125,P< 0.05).Emotional abuse and emotional neglect were predictive of interpersonal safety score (β =-0.227,-0.147,P< 0.05) and the sense of control score (β =-0.274,-0.076,P<0.05).The structural equation showed that left-behind childhood played a moderating role between childhood abuse and adult security (P =0.004).Conclusion Emotional abuse and emotional neglect have a negative predictive effect on the sense of security,and left-behind childhood plays a moderating role between child abuse and adult security.