Longitudinal Relations Between Childhood Maltreatment, Maltreatment-Specific Shame, and Postpartum Psychopathology
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-1-2018
Description
The persistence of shame-based reactions to child maltreatment (CM) has been associated with poor posttraumatic adjustment. Despite evidence that the postpartum period is a vulnerable time for women with CM histories, little is known about the consequences of maltreatment-specific (MS) shame for postpartum functioning. The current study examined individual differences in MS shame among a sample of women during the postpartum period (n = 100) as well as prospective relations from MS shame to postpartum psychopathology at 6-, 12-, 15-, and 18-month postpartum. Linear growth curve (LGC) analyses showed that MS shame predicted higher levels of depression symptoms but not post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms at all time points whereas path analyses showed that shame mediated the relations from multi-maltreatment to both depression and PTSD symptoms at all time points. Results point to the long-term consequences of MS shame during postpartum and the importance of attending to shame in clinical care of maltreatment survivors who present with postpartum psychopathology.
Citation Information
Menke, Rena A.; Morelen, Diana; Simon, Valerie A.; Rosenblum, Katherine L.; and Muzik, Maria. 2018. Longitudinal Relations Between Childhood Maltreatment, Maltreatment-Specific Shame, and Postpartum Psychopathology. Child Maltreatment. Vol.23(1). 44-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559517720070 PMID: 28705086 ISSN: 1077-5595