The prevalence of childhood trauma and parental caretaking quality among gastric surgery candidates.

In this study, we examined the prevalence of traumatic childhood experiences as well as the quality of parental caretaking among 121 individuals (85.9% of which were women) seeking surgical treatment for obesity (mean body mass index of 47.2). Among this sample, 43.0% reported emotional abuse, 39.0% the witnessing of violence, 19.0% sexual abuse, 17.4% physical abuse, and 9.1% physical neglect. While the overall quality of parental caretaking was skewed toward a positive rating, those respondents who indicated each form of childhood trauma rated the quality of parental caretaking lower than did those without that specific form of abuse. The authors discuss the implications of these findings.