Childhood Maltreatment and Anhedonic Symptoms: Test of a Dual-risk Model in Emerging Adults

Preliminary Evidence for Anhedonia as a Marker of Sexual Trauma in Female Adolescents

Introduction

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common condition with heterogeneous presentations that often include predominant anhedonia. Previous studies have revealed that childhood trauma is a potent risk factor for the development of MDD; however, the clinical implications of this finding are not fully understood.

Methods

Participants were adolescents (age 13–21 years) with a diagnosis of moderate-to-severe major depressive disorder and healthy controls. We used generalized linear models to assess the relationship between anhedonia severity and trauma severity in a cross-sectional dataset.

Results

This cross-sectional analysis of an adolescent sample that underwent clinical evaluations and a trauma assessment, suggested that anhedonia was associated with historical trauma severity. The association between anhedonia and sexual abuse was greater in female participants compared to male participants.

Discussion

Our results were partially in line with the reported literature in adult samples. Future studies aiming to characterize the trauma–anhedonia relationship in adolescents should utilize scales designed specifically to measure these constructs in young populations, and scales that assess specific subtypes of anhedonia.