Child maltreatment and adult health in a national sample: heterogeneous relational contexts, divergent effects?

OBJECTIVE

This study considers the long-term health consequences of child maltreatment. Distinct from previous research, we examine the effects of maltreatment in the context of more general parental evaluations.

METHOD: Analyses used retrospective and current data from the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) study.

RESULTS

A considerable proportion of middle- and older-age adults who experienced frequent maltreatment nevertheless evaluated the relationship with their offending parent as "excellent", "very good", or "good" (e.g., 47% for physical and emotional maltreatment by mothers). Maltreated respondents generally evaluated their maltreating parents less favorably than non-maltreating parents, but there was considerable variation in these recollected relationships. Adults who experienced child maltreatment reported a greater number of chronic medical conditions and physical symptoms and lower self-rated health, but effects were smaller when they had positive relationships with their parents than when one or more of the relationships was perceived as negative.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings highlight a common and seemingly paradoxical pattern among MIDUS participants: the co-presence of harsh parental behavior and positive recollections of parental relationships during childhood. Moreover, these surprising patterns of retrospective interpretation predict very different experiences of adult health - health problems are most pronounced among maltreatment in cases where the respondent had a generally negative relationship with one or more of his or her parents.