ArticleJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2020
Time-Dependent Effects of Exposure to Physical and Sexual Violence on Psychopathology Symptoms in Late Childhood: In Search of Sensitive Periods in Development.
Article in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Refugee and asylum seeker child and adolescent mental health: A systematic review of racial, ethnic, and contextual disparities.The American journal of orthopsychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Gene-environment correlations and causal effects of childhood maltreatment on physical and mental health: a genetically informed approach.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- The relationship between age of first exposure and posttraumatic symptoms: results from the global psychotrauma screen.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Type and developmental timing of childhood adversity predicts psychopathology symptoms in a South African birth cohort.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Practitioner Review: Infant mental health meets cell and molecular biology - a look to the future.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Review
- Accumulation and sensitive period effects for childhood abuse and financial hardship on depressive symptoms in late adolescence.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2026Article
- Can Psychiatric Genetics Advance Without Incorporating a Life Course Perspective?Biological psychiatry · 2026Review
- Association of duration and timing of household dysfunction with aggression: A Taiwan birth cohort study.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Early Life Stress Effects on Children's Biology, Behavior, and Health: Evidence, Mediators, Moderators, and Solutions.Annual review of psychology · 2026Review
- Trajectories of psychosocial functioning across maltreatment levels: A group-based modeling approach to resilience.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
- A framework for understanding adverse adolescent experiences.Nature human behaviour · 2025Review
- Prevalence and correlates of sexual violence against adolescents: Quantitative evidence from rural and urban communities in South-West Nigeria.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Machine learning for identifying caregiving adversities associated with greatest risk for mental health problems in children.Nature. Mental health · 2025Article
- Teacher Violence and Student Wellbeing in Rural Sierra Leone: Longitudinal Dynamics Across Primary Schooling.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Early Life Trauma, Emotion Dysregulation and Hormonal Sensitivity Across Female Reproductive Life Events.Current psychiatry reports · 2024Review
- Epigenetic Modifications and Neuroplasticity in the Pathogenesis of Depression: A Focus on Early Life Stress.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Childhood adversity and psychopathology: the dimensions of timing, type and chronicity in a population-based sample of high-risk adolescents.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2024Article
- Which individual, social, and urban factors in early childhood predict psychopathology in later childhood, adolescence and young adulthood? A systematic review.SSM - population health · 2024Review
- Review
- Early life adversities and lifelong health outcomes: A review of the literature on large, social, long-lived nonhuman mammals.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveExposure to interpersonal violence is a known risk factor for psychopathology. However, it is unclear whether there are sensitive periods when exposure is most deleterious. We aimed to determine whether there were time periods when physical or sexual violence exposure was associated with greater child psychopathology.
methodThis study (N = 4,580) was embedded in Generation R, a population-based prospective birth cohort. Timing of violence exposure, reported through maternal reports (child age, 10 years) was categorized by age at first exposure, defined as: very early (0-3 years), early (4-5 years), middle (6-7 years), and late (8+ years) childhood. Using Poisson regression, we assessed the association between timing of first exposure and levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, using the Child Behavior Checklist at age 10 years.
resultsViolence exposure at any age was associated with higher internalizing (physical violence: risk ratio [RR] = 1.46, p < 0.0001; sexual violence: RR = 1.30, p < .0001) and externalizing symptoms (physical violence: RR = 1.52, p < 0.0001; sexual violence: RR = 1.31, p = 0.0005). However, the effects of violence were time dependent: compared to children exposed at older ages, children first exposed during very early childhood had greater externalizing symptoms. Sensitivity analyses suggested that these time-based differences emerged slowly across ages 1.5, 3, 6, and 10 years, showing a latency between onset of violence exposure and emergence of symptoms, and were unlikely to be explained by co-occurring adversities.
conclusionInterpersonal violence is harmful to childhood mental health regardless of when it occurs. However, very early childhood may be a particularly sensitive period when exposure results in worse psychopathology outcomes. Results should be replicated in fully prospective designs.
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