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Emotional and physical maltreatment, early maladaptive schemas, and internalizing disorders in adolescents: a multi-group path model of clinical and non-clinical samples

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Abstract

Many studies have supported the mediating role of maladaptive schemas in the relationship between early childhood adversity and psychopathology in both clinical and non-clinical adolescent samples. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no study to simultaneously test the mediating role of maladaptive schemas in a combined model included in both clinical and non-clinical samples of adolescents. The sample of the study consisted of 132 non-clinical (M = 15.65, SD = 1.15) and 193 clinically referred (M = 15.05, SD = 1.07) adolescents. Criteria for the clinical sample included being diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, depressive disorder or mixed anxiety and depressive disorder. Participants were administered The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Young Schema Questionnaire, Children’s Depression Inventory, and Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesized mediation model that Disconnection/Rejection and Impaired Autonomy schema domains would mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and psychological symptoms for clinical and non-clinical adolescent samples, separately. Furthermore, we tested whether structural paths of the model were different across the two samples, using multiple-group path analysis. Results showed that Disconnection/Rejection and Impaired Autonomy emerged as significant mediators in both samples. In addition, only the association between Disconnection/Rejection and depression was stronger in the clinical sample compared to the non-clinical sample.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of Psychology, Başkent University, Bağlıca Yerleşkesi, Eskişehir Yolu, 06810, Ankara, Turkey

    İbrahim Yiğit

  2. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service, Aksaray State Hospital, Aksaray, Turkey

    Harun Kılıç

  3. Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Department of Psychology, Ankara University, Sıhhiye, 06100, Ankara, Turkey

    Melike Guzey Yiğit & Cihat Çelik

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  2. Harun Kılıç
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Yiğit, İ., Kılıç, H., Guzey Yiğit, M. et al. Emotional and physical maltreatment, early maladaptive schemas, and internalizing disorders in adolescents: a multi-group path model of clinical and non-clinical samples. Curr Psychol 40, 1356–1366 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-0068-4

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