Adverse childhood experiences and coping strategies: identifying pathways to resiliency in adulthood

ABSTRACT

Objective

The current study examined whether coping strategies mediate the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adult psychiatric and physical health outcomes.

Methods

Data were drawn from wave I (N = 7108), wave II (N = 4963), and wave III (N = 3294) of the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) Survey. An ACE count was created using seven aspects of early adversity based on prior literature. Coping variables were created using subscales of the COPE inventory. Psychiatric and health outcomes were assessed at baseline and at the 20-year follow-up. Bootstrapping mediation analyses were conducted using MPLUS to examine the link between ACEs and health outcomes and to determine if coping strategies mediate these relationships.

Results

Results of path analyses in Mplus showed that ACEs, reported at Wave I, were associated with worse psychiatric and physical health outcomes at Wave III. ACEs at Wave I were associated with greater use of avoidant emotion-focused coping and lower use of problem-focused strategies at Wave II. Avoidant emotion-focused coping at Wave II partially mediated the relationship between ACEs, reported at Wave I, and psychiatric and physical health outcomes reported at Wave III. No significant mediation was detected for problem-focused coping.

Conclusions

Coping strategies may be an important point target for prevention or intervention for individuals who have experienced ACEs.

KEYWORDS:

• Adverse childhood experiences
• ACE
• coping
• health
• mental health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ian H. Stanley http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5607-5763

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health under [grant number R03 AG047955]. Secondary data analysis of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) waves I through III for the current project was approved by the Florida State University Human Subjects Committee (HSC No. 2015.16352). The MIDUS data series is publicly accessible through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Although the study is based on secondary data analysis of the MIDUS, no other published article has examined the specific research question presented in the current manuscript. See the following link for additional information and existing publications based on the MIDUS data series: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/series/203/studies?archive=ICPSR&sortBy=7