中国人民大学心理学系-凯发k8国际首页

liu, j., deng, j., zhang, h., & tang, x. (2023). the relationship between child maltreatment and social anxiety: a meta-analysis. journal of affective disorders, 329, 157–167.

background: globally, child maltreatment has become a serious problem, affecting individuals' physical and mental health. this meta-analysis aimed to explore the association between child maltreatment and social anxiety.

methods: medline, psycinfo, embase, scopus, and web of science were searched for articles published by october 2021. newcastle-ottawa quality assessment scale (nos) was used to evaluate the quality of studies. maltreatment type, sample setting, age, country and measurement instruments were analyzed as moderators.

results: twenty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria. child maltreatment was positively correlated with social anxiety (r = 0.201, 95 % ci [0.171, 0.230]). the moderating effect of maltreatment subtypes was significant whether divided into three types (qb = 12.152, p = .002), or five types (qb = 11.574, p = .021). specifically, emotional maltreatment (r = 0.251, 95 % ci [0.201, 0.298]) had a stronger relationship with social anxiety than physical (r = 0.138, 95 % ci [0.085, 0.191]; qb = 9.312, p = .002) and sexual maltreatment (r = 0.153, 95 % ci [0.108, 0.197]; qb = 9.197, p = .002). however, there was no significant difference in the effect size between physical and sexual maltreatment (qb = 0.096, p = .757). other variables (age, sample setting and country) were not significant moderators.

limitations: only twenty-nine studies were included, and there was high heterogeneity among the studies, the interpretation of the results should be cautious.

conclusions: this meta-analysis confirmed the relationship between child maltreatment and social anxiety, especially highlight the harmfulness of emotional maltreatment.