Direct and Indirect Effect of Childhood Traumatic Experiences on Cluster-B Personality Disorders in Adults.

Background: There has been no detailed investigations of the association between different types of childhood traumatic experiences and personality disorders (PDs) and mediating effect of maladaptive schemas among young adults in Pakistan. Hence, this study aimed to explore the relationship between retrospective reports of various types of childhood traumatic experiences and current diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-V) PDs in a non-clinical population in Pakistan, Sargodha. Objective: To investigate the relationship between childhood's traumatic experiences, maladaptive schemas personality disorders and examine the indirect effect of childhood traumatic experiences. Study type, settings and duration: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Sargodha, Pakistan from October 2016 to November 2017. Subjects and Methods: The study population comprised of 300 adults. Data was collected by administering childhood traumatic questionnaire, young schema questionnaire and personality diagnostic questionnaire. SPSS-23 had been used for data analysis. Correlation and mediation analysis was done though process software. Results: Male to female ratio was 1:1. Childhood traumatic experiences had positive correlation with histrionic (r = .23, p <0.05), narcissistic (r = .14, p <0.05), borderline (r = .19, p <0.05) and antisocial personality disorder (r = .17, p <0.01). Childhood traumatic experiences had positive correlation with early maladaptive schemas (r = .82, p <0.01).Thus Childhood traumatic experiences have direct and indirect effect (through schemas) on personality disorders which was anticipated in the study. Conclusion: Childhood traumatic experiences contribute to personality disorder later in life among young adults through maladaptive schemas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]