(PS4-15) Associations of Child Maltreatment Subgroups and Adult Relationship Adjustment Among a High-risk Dyadic Sample

Abstract Text: Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a global public health concern. Exposure to CM comprises five distinct subgroups including physical abuse (PA), sexual abuse (SA), emotional abuse (EA), physical neglect (PN) and emotional neglect (EN). The long-term consequences of CM are substantial, including decreased adjustment within survivors’ adult romantic relationships. However, the association between specific CM subgroups and adult relationship adjustment is less clear. Prior work examining all five subgroups and relationship adjustment has been limited, and few studies have examined all five subgroups in romantic partner dyads, despite the relational context of these associations. Moreover, CM has strong links to alcohol use disorder (AUD) and intimate partner aggression (IPA), suggesting that this subpopulation may be especially vulnerable to relationship distress. To address these gaps, the current study explored the associations between all five CM subgroups and relationship adjustment among romantic partner dyads presenting with both AUD and IPA.

This study used couples’ baseline data (N=100 romantic couples; 92% heterosexual, 53% women, 69% white, Mage = 35.42) from a randomized controlled trial among couples with current physical IPA and AUD. Participants completed self-report measures, including the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) to measure CM subgroups and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) to measure relationship adjustment.

Five Actor Partner Interdependence Models (APIM) were conducted within a multi-level modeling framework to test individual associations between CM subgroups and relationship adjustment (i.e., actor effects) and dyadic associations between CM subgroups and relationship adjustment (i.e., partner effects). The APIMs also controlled for partners’ alcohol use problems (using AUDIT total scores), psychological physical IPV (using CTS-2 MAX scoring method), given the sampling plan for the parent trial. Results revealed that EN was the only CM subgroup to have significant negative actor (b = -.87, SE = .266, p = .001) and partner (b = -.91, SE = .266, p < .001) effects on relationship adjustment. Findings also showed a significant negative actor effect for PA (b = -.93, SE = .37, p = .013) and EA (b = -.62, SE = .275, p = .025) with relationship adjustment. For both PA and SA, partner effects were marginally significant in a negative direction (p = .053, p = .054, respectively). No other actor or partner effects were significant.

These results emphasize the importance of contextualizing unique CM experiences to better understand the associations with adult romantic relationship adjustment, particularly in high-risk samples that previously have garnered less academic focus. The results also suggest the value of considering both partners’ histories with different CM subgroups for high-risk samples when conceptualizing and treating couples in distress. Furthermore, previous work typically combined EN with other subgroups, yet our findings highlight the need to distinctly assess for EN in addition to the other CM subgroups. Overall, more research is needed to evaluate associations between CM experiences and romantic relationship adjustment, especially among high-risk samples.