Childhood maltreatment and its relation with depression and anxiety among psychiatric patients in Riyadh - KSA

Objectives: Abuse can occur at any stage of childhood leaving an impact on the individual's future mental health. It could be verbal, physical. and emotional. In this research, we focus on determining the correlation of childhood abuse and psychiatric patients with specific aims of identifying the link between depression and anxiety towards child maltreatment. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a psychiatric clinic among 155 depression and anxiety male and female patients who were randomly selected with age ranging from 20 to 50 plus years. The data were collected by a printed survey distributed manually. Results: Survey of 155 patients showed that (66.5%) raised with both parents. The punishment witnessed by patients in the household was physical (35.5%), emotional (26.5%), and verbal (18.1%). (51.6%) of the patients answered "yes" when they were asked whether if their caregiver acted in a way scared patients' of getting hurt. Caregivers react to mistakes (X-2 = 17.665; P= 0.007), caregiver acted in a way that made patients afraid of getting hurt (X-2 = 8.396; P= 0.015). Other variables did not significantly influence anxiety and depression (All > 0.05). Conclusion: Overall, gender and growing with both parents may not affect the psychology of an individual, but maltreatment in childhood (e.g., resorting to physical punishments, constant threats from the caregiver) increases the chances of getting depression/anxiety in adulthood. Regarding our research, childhood maltreatment memories hunt adults in their future leading to psychological damage. Consequently, recognition of childhood maltreatment in family and PHC physicians' clinic might aid in treatment, selection, and management.