SynthesisAnnals of medicine2025
Early childhood trauma and its long-term impact on cognitive and emotional development: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Annals of medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- The overlooked role of primary care in early childhood trauma: comment on 'Early childhood trauma and its long-term impact on cognitive and emotional development'.Annals of medicine · 2026Article
- Linking maternal childhood maltreatment to health-related and psychosocial risk factors during pregnancy: intergenerational implications for early child development.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Anxiety as a Mediator Between Childhood Trauma and Social Competence Among Adolescents and Young Adults.Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2026Article
- The neuropsychological impact of early childhood trauma on cognitive development: A narrative review of mechanisms, outcomes, and interventions.PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2026Review
- The Impact of Stress, Trauma, and Violence on Well-Being and Physical Health.Research in nursing & health · 2026Article
- The role of intelligence in PTSD treatment outcomes: evidence from a multicenter TF-CBT trial with youth.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Early Life Stress and Adversity in Children: Neuroendocrine Mechanisms, Epigenetic Regulation, and Lifespan Developmental Outcomes-A Narrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Cascading model of causal relationships in EMS ontogeny: integration of Piaget, Erikson, Bowlby, and Young paradigms.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- A study design for modulating two components of the risk architecture of chronic pain: adverse life events and pain catastrophising.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Associations between childhood trauma, cognitive function, and clinical symptoms in first-episode schizophrenia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Altered dynamic functional connectivity characteristics in adolescent depression with childhood trauma: a pilot resting-state EEG study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Trauma, Stress, and Mental Health Outcomes.Journal of psychiatry and psychiatric disorders · 2025Article
- Synergising latent profile analysis and network analysis to elucidate the relationships among emotion dysregulation, post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, psychosis, and affective symptoms in individuals with trauma and severe mental illness.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundChildhood trauma has profound, long-term effects on cognitive and emotional development. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to synthesis the evidence around the long-term impact of human childhood trauma on domains of cognition and emotion in order to inform interventions and public health strategies.
methodsWe systematically reviewed 465 studies from PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar, 9 studies were included after duplicates were removed and inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, and all 9 studies were aimed at low-income people in the United States. Data on study design, trauma types, and cognitive/emotional outcomes were extracted. Study quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) and Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool (RoB 2). Random-effects meta-analysis and subgroup analyses (processing speed, attention, working memory, emotion regulation, executive function) were conducted using R software.
resultsChildhood trauma was associated with significant deficits in: Attention (SMD = 2.37, 95% CI: [5.75, 10.50]) Working memory (SMD = 3.55, 95% CI: [2.18, 9.28]) Emotion regulation (SMD = 1.25, 95% CI: [1.12, 3.62]) Executive function (SMD = 1.61, 95% CI: [0.06, 3.28]) Processing speed showed smaller deficits (SMD = -0.48, 95% CI: [-1.91, 0.94]). High heterogeneity (I
conclusionChildhood trauma disproportionately impairs attention and working memory. These findings, however, point to the importance of early screening, trauma-informed care and targeted interventions to ameliorate the long-term consequences of trauma, even with high heterogeneity. Methodological variability should be addressed to inform prevention and treatment strategies in future research, as well as resilience factors explored.
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