The relationship between childhood abuse/neglect and temperament, character development, anger in psychiatry outpatients

Childhood abuse and neglect are activities or failures that are directed towards a child by parents or other caregivers, and block or limit childs development. People who were abused or neglected as children have increased risk of psychiatric problems.The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of childhood abuse and neglect experiences on temperament, character development and anger in psychiatry outpatients. 250 patients who were referred to outpatient clinics with several problems and diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and who meet the inclusion criterias were included in the study. Assesment were done by using childhod trauma questionare, multidimentional anger questionare and temperament characters inventory. In depression diagnosed group statistically significant results were found between emotional abuse/neglect and harm avoidance relation; and emotional abuse, physical abuse, neglect and anger scores. In previous studies that searched for the temperament and character features of depression patients, harm avoidance was found to be the most relevant temperament dimension that is related to depression. In literature there are no studies investigating the association between childhood abuse/neglect and temperament character features of depression patients.In the anxiety disorders group of the study; the positive result indicating an association between sexual abuse and anger that is absent in other four groups, indicates that sexual abuse may increase the anger levels of patients with anxiety.In the group of alcohol/substance dependent patients, significant associations were found between several abuse/neglect types and temperament, character dimensions, anger levels. The similar results of such studies in the literature strengthen our results.Although ?other disorders? group is a heterogenous group, a negative but significant relation between all abuse/neglect types and cooperativeness as a temperament dimension. The limited patient number in this group is thought to be a limitation of this study. It can be supposed that this character dimension as an important predictor of personality disorders may be formed in the presence of abuse and neglect. The effects of axis 2 disorders were not investigated in this study.The results of this study indicating significant associations between varying proportions of several abuse/neglect types and temperament, character features, anger; make us to think that presence of childhood abuse/neglect may have an important role in this area. In literature there are no studies investigating the association between childhood abuse/neglect and temperament, character features. New studies that investigate the effects and consequences of childhood abuse and neglect on adulthood will be efficacious.