Gender moderates the relationships between childhood abuse experiences and mental disorders later in life: a cross-sectional study among university students in Turkey

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to assess the moderating role of gender in the relationship between childhood abuse and mental disorders in the population of a country that has been little studied. This research was designed by the correlational model, one of the quantitative research designs. 272 university students attending a state university in Turkey participated in the research. For sample selection, the convenience sampling method was used. As a result of analyses within the scope of the present study, it was concluded that gender had a moderating effect on the relationship between sexual abuse and somatisation, emotional abuse and negative self and physical neglect and hostility. This finding may help clinicians and researchers in providing optimal health services.KEYWORDS: Childhood traumatic experiencespsychological symptomsgendermoderating effect AcknowledgementsThe authors declares that all procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards. Before the start of the study, permission documents were obtained from the scientific research and publication ethics committee of Gümüşhane University. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availabilityThe datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.Additional informationNotes on contributorsTuğba TürkkanTugba Turkkan is a psychologist and lecturer in Social Work Department at Gumushane University. Her research interests concern child abuse, trauma and personality.Hatice OdacıHatice Odaci is a professor in the Faculty of Letters, Department of Psychology at Karadeniz Technical University. Her research focuses on the field of personality, health, development and child abuse.Kenan BülbülKenan Bulbul is a doctor of Psychological Counselling and Guidance. His research interests concern child abuse, development and personality.