童年逆境对老年人抑郁的影响研究

Study of the Effect of Childhood Adversity on Depression among Chinese Older Adults

文章基于中国健康与养老追踪调查(CHARLS)面板数据研究童年逆境对老年人抑郁的影响机理。研究发现童年时期严重的躯体或情感虐待、父母关系差、家庭社会经济地位低、经历重大创伤等四类童年逆境均会显著提高老年人抑郁的发生风险。研究显示在童年时期父母偶尔的打骂不会严重影响儿童身心发展,但经常打骂则可能会产生长期负面影响;父母关系差对儿童虽然不是实质性伤害,但也会造成长期且深远的影响,其负面影响超过了躯体或情感虐待;家庭社会经济地位低是负面影响最大的逆境事件,童年时期社会经济地位低可能通过累积劣势机制对个体整个生命历程产生影响;经历重大创伤可能提高老年抑郁风险,但其影响小于童年时期社会经济地位低、父母关系差等因素。童年逆境对老年人抑郁的影响存在显著的“剂量-反应”效应,逆境事件越多老年人受抑郁影响的风险越高。分性别来看,长期逆境状况对女性的影响大于男性,而重大创伤对男性的长期影响更大。分城乡来看,四类童年逆境事件对农村样本均有显著影响,但仅家庭社会经济地位因素对于城镇样本有影响,表明社会经济地位可能是十分重要的中间机制。

Based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey(CHARLS)panel data,this pa⁃per examined the influence mechanism of childhood adversity on depression among Chinese older adults.The results showed that severe physical or emotional abuse,poor parental relationship,low socioeconomic status,experiencing major trauma in childhood all can significantly increase the risk of depression among older adults.Studies showed that occasional beat and scold by parents during childhood does not seriously affect children’s mental health,but frequent beat and scold may have long-term negative effects;Although not physically harmful,poor parental relationship can have long-term and profound effects on children,and the negative effects outweigh physical or emotional abuse;The negative effect of low socioeconomic status is the greatest,low socioeconomic status in childhood may have an impact on the whole life course of indi⁃viduals through the mechanism of accumulated disadvantage;Experiencing a major trauma may increase the risk of depression in old age,but the effect is smaller than socioeconomic status and poor parental rela⁃tionships in childhood.There is a“dose-response”effect between childhood adversity and elderly depres⁃sion.By gender,long-term adversity affects women more than men,while major trauma affects men more.By region,all the four types of childhood adversity had significant effects on the rural samples,but only the family socio-economic status factor had an impact on the urban samples,indicating that socio-economic status may be a very important intermediate mechanism.