Understanding the relationship between early life adversity and depressive symptoms: a network analysis

Accumulating empirical evidence has demonstrated that early life adversity (ELA) is closely associated with depressive symptoms. However, previous studies focused on the relationship between a single dimension of ELA and depressive symptoms without taking other dimensions of ELA into consideration. The relationships between depressive symptoms and different types of ELAs warrant further exploration. The regularized partial correlation network analysis was utilized to examine the direct associations between each type of ELA and depressive symptoms, after controlling for the influence of other variables. Given concerns about the replicability of networks from network analysis, an independent sample was used to verify the stability of the observed network structure occurring in the main sample. The network structure revealed that depressive symptoms were independently associated with each type of ELA. Moreover, among all ELA nodes, childhood emotional abuse was most closely linked to depressive symptoms and showed the highest expected influence. No significant differences were found between the two networks in global connectivity (difference = 0.29, p = 0.44) and structure (difference = 0.12, p = 0.29), indicating the good replicability of the network structure. Findings suggest that childhood emotional maltreatment plays a central role in linking ELA and depressive symptoms in adulthood. Therefore, interventions against emotional trauma in childhood seem most likely to thrive in adulthood.