SynthesisJournal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines2023
Subjective and objective experiences of childhood adversity: a meta-analysis of their agreement and relationships with psychopathology.
Synthesis in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 80 citations in OpenAlex.
- Eating and Sleep Disturbances in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder in Turkey: A Systematic Review.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Pooled it
- Positive and negative parenting practices and offspring disruptive behavior: A meta-analytic review of quasi-experimental evidence.Psychological bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Adverse childhood experiences and risk of late-life dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Critical windows: timing of child maltreatment exposure and adult mental health.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Sequelae of child maltreatment: Umbrella synthesis of 148 meta-analyses on the mental health correlates.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Childhood adversity subgroups and their associations with mental health symptoms among Rhode Island young adults.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Young adult self-harm: The role of victimisation and polygenic risk in a population-based longitudinal study.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Reducing Problematic Parenting Behaviors, Child Neglect, and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Multisystemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect.Child maltreatment · 2026Article
- Perpetrator types, severity, and cumulative trauma: a population-based study of childhood sexual abuse characteristics and lifelong health.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2026Article
- Measurement congruence between record data and retrospective self-report measures of child maltreatment: do positive childhood experiences affect discrepancies?Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Trajectories of childhood adversity, social welfare dependence in young adulthood, and the mediating role of mental health problems: a Danish population-based cohort study.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Squaring the circle: Is triangulation of child abuse reports helpful?Child abuse & neglect · 2026Article
- Genetic sensitivity to the environment moderates the impact of positive and negative childhood experiences on psychological adjustment "for good and for bad".European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2026Article
- Inconsistency in trauma reporting: role of PTSD, depression and psychological distress in a longitudinal study among healthcare workers.BJPsych open · 2026Article
- Exploring sleep-related problems among concerned others of individuals with mental health problems and/or problematic substance use: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Associations between early life adversity and the development of gray matter macrostructure and microstructure.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Investigating psychosocial factors and systemic inflammation using dried blood spots: a scoping review.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Research Review: Assessment of early-life adversity and trauma - cumulative risk and dimensional approaches.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Review
- The association between longitudinal patterns of adverse childhood experiences, and self-harm and depression in adolescence and early adulthood: findings from the Avon longitudinal study of parents and children.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- Time to incorporate positive experiences and outcomes in psychosis research: genetic differential susceptibility to childhood experiences works for "better and for worse".Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundResearchers use both subjective self-report and objective measures, such as official records, to investigate the impact of childhood adversity on psychopathology. However, it is unclear whether subjective and objective measures of childhood adversity (a) show agreement, and (b) differentially predict psychopathology.
methodTo address this, we conducted a pre-registered meta-analysis to examine the agreement between subjective and objective measures of childhood adversity, and their prediction of psychopathology. We searched in PubMed, PsycINFO and Embase for articles with both subjective measures (self-reports) and objective measures of childhood adversity (comprising official records, or reports from multiple informants unrelated to the target individual), and measures of psychopathology.
resultsWe identified 22 studies (n = 18,163) with data on agreement between subjective and objective measures of childhood adversities, and 17 studies (n = 14,789) with data on the associations between subjective and objective measures with psychopathology. First, we found that subjective and objective measures of childhood adversities were only moderately correlated (e.g. for maltreatment, r = .32, 95% CI = 0.23-0.41). Second, subjective measures of childhood adversities were associated with psychopathology, independent of objective measures (e.g. for maltreatment, r = .16, 95% CI = 0.09-0.22). In contrast, objective measures of childhood adversities had null or minimal associations with psychopathology, independent of subjective measures (e.g. r for maltreatment = .06, 95% CI = -0.02-0.13).
conclusionsOur findings suggest that the effects of childhood adversity on psychopathology are primarily driven by a person's subjective experience. If this is the case, clinical interventions targeting memories and cognitive processes surrounding childhood adversity may reduce the risk of psychopathology in exposed individuals.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.