Past Issues

Objectives: Both depressive symptoms and childhood trauma exposures compromise mental health in patients with schizophrenia. In this cross-sectional study, we intended to examine the associations between various types of childhood trauma exposures and depressive symptoms as well as to investigate the moderating effect of resilience on the associations in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: We included 60 patients with schizophrenia in this study. Their depressive symptoms, experiences of childhood trauma exposures, level of resilience, and severities of psychiatric symptoms were collected. Results: Patients with schizophrenia in this study experienced many types of childhood trauma exposures (mean ± standard deviation = 2.8 ± 1.4). We found that sexual abuse (p < 0.05) and emotional neglect (p < 0.05) were significantly and positively correlated with depressive symptoms, whereas resilience was significantly but negatively correlated with depressive symptoms (p < 0.001). The strength of the positive association between emotional neglect and depression was decreased in power as the level of resilience was increased. Conclusion: Mental health professionals should routinely assess the experiences of childhood trauma and manage psychological distress caused by childhood trauma exposures in patients with schizophrenia.