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Depression and resilience mediate the relationship between traumatic life events and ill physical health: results from a population study

Karatzias, Thanos; Jowett, Sally; Yan, Elsie; Raeside, Robert; Howard, Ruth

Authors

Sally Jowett

Elsie Yan

Ruth Howard



Abstract

We set out to investigate the mediating roles of depression, resilience, smoking, and alcohol use, in the relationship between potentially traumatic life events and objective and subjective, physical and mental health in a single study. A face-to-face, population-based survey was conducted in Hong Kong (N = 1147). Information on health conditions and traumatic life events was obtained, and participants completed measures of subjective physical and mental health, depression, and resilience. Smoking and drinking were not significant mediators of the relationship between life events and both objective and subjective health. Depressive symptomatology was found to mediate the relationship between life threatening illness and subjective physical health, the relationship between abuse (physical and sexual) and subjective mental health, and the relationship between the death of a parent/partner and subjective mental health. Resilience was found to mediate the relationships between multiple traumatic life events and subjective physical and mental health. Our results indicate that psychological factors rather than biological are important mediators of the relationship between life events exposure and health. Our findings provide evidence that depressive symptomatology has a mediating role only in the case of specific potentially traumatic life events and that resilience is only a critical factor in the face of exposure to multiple traumatic events, rather than single events. Our results also indicate that behavioural factors, such as smoking and drinking, are not significant mediators of the relationship between life events and health.

Citation

Karatzias, T., Jowett, S., Yan, E., Raeside, R., & Howard, R. (2016). Depression and resilience mediate the relationship between traumatic life events and ill physical health: results from a population study. Psychology, Health and Medicine, 22(9), 1021-1031. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2016.1257814

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 2, 2016
Online Publication Date Nov 10, 2016
Publication Date Nov 10, 2016
Deposit Date Jun 12, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Psychology, Health & Medicine
Print ISSN 1354-8506
Electronic ISSN 1465-3966
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 22
Issue 9
Pages 1021-1031
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2016.1257814
Keywords Trauma, life events, resilience, depression, smoking, alcohol
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/930240

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Depression and resilience mediate the relationship between traumatic life events and ill physical health: Results from a population study (317 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Psychology, Health and Medicine on10/11/2016, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2016.1257814


Depression and resilience mediate the relationship between traumatic life events and ill physical health: results from a population study (152 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Psychology, Health and Medicine on10/11/2016, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2016.1257814






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