The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And University Students' Depression:The Role Of Perceived Social Support,Resilience And RSA

The prevalence of depression in university adolescents is increasing and attributable to academic,financial and social stressors.Other factors that place students at a higher risk of depression include adversity in childhood.Adverse childhood experiences(ACEs)are known risk factors for the development of depression,and may be particularly salient for young adults as they draw from developmental experience in consolidating identity and establishing adult trajectories.ACEs have even been constantly associated an increased risk of adult morbidity and mortality,yet little research has been conducted to identify factors that may protect the health of those exposed to ACEs.Since not all young adults exposed to ACEs develop depression,it is important to understand facilitating and protective factors to inform prevention and early intervention efforts.Resilience and perceived social support(PSS)can serve as protective factors to protect students from ACEs.Likewise,respiratory sinus arrythmia(RSA)has been considered as an effective index of cardiac vagal tone.Higher baseline RSA(might indicate more flexible emotional regulation and adaptability in individuals),has been observed as a physiological risk or protective factor for internalizing problems,such as depression and anxiety.In contrast,low baseline RSA may be vulnerable to the negative effects of ACEs.Therefore,it can be inferred that RSA maybe a protective physiological factor for adolescents.In recent years,increased studies have focused on the influence of various risk factors or promoters on adolescent depression,but many issues still need to be further discussed.Therefore,according to the existing literatures,the present research conducted two studies,the questionnaire survey and stress task in a university sample,in order to investigate the associations among ACEs,PSS,resilience,RSA and depression of university students systematically.Furthermore,we explored the mediating effect of PSS and resilience,as well as the moderating effect of RSA on the association between ACEs and depression.The detailed information of the present research is as follows:Specifically,study 1 explored the associations between ACEs,PSS,resilience and depression of university students,as well as the mediating effect of PSS and resilience on the relationship between ACEs and depression by means of questionnaire.A total of 232 college students(aged 16-22)from Shaanxi Normal University participated in this study.The data of ACEs,PSS,resilience and depression of university students were obtained through the Chinese version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire(CTQ).Perceived Social Support Scale(PSSS),Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale(CD-RISC)and Beck Depression Inventory(BDI).Based on the data analyses,the mediating role of PSS and resilience in the relationship between ACEs and depression has been confirmed.Specifically,ACEs not only can positively predict university students' depression level directly,but also could affect university students' depression level by PSS and resilience respectively.Study 2 included three stress tasks including watching a sad film clip,mental arithmetic task,speech task.and one baseline resting phase.Physiological data such as heart rate and respiratory parameters were collected though SOMINOTMtouch device.The baseline and physiological stress data of college students was obtained after calculation.The association between ACEs,baseline RSA,RSA reactivity and college students' depression was explored.The results of regression analyses showed that baseline moderated the association between ACEs and depression.Particularly,there was a significant positive association between ACEs and depression levels in university students with high baseline RSA,but not in individuals with low baseline RSA.It has been demonstrated that high baseline RSA might be a susceptive factor to the adverse environment and closely associated to the negative outcomes,i.e.,individual depression levels.However,there was no significant effect of RSA reactivity on depression in both high and low ACEs groups,which is also not consistent with our hypothesis about RSA reactivity.The reason for this might be that baseline RSA and RSA reactivity represent two different indexes.Resting RSA is more related to individual temperament,emotion and personality,as well as some other stable psychological characteristics,while RSA reactivity reflects transient physiological changes during the task status,and it is more associated with stateful emotional and psychological activities.Therefore,these two indices might play different roles with ACEs and depression.In conclusion,this study explored the mediating role of PSS and resilience,as well as the relationship among baseline RSA,ACEs and depression in a university sample.It provided evidence for the potential effect of environmental and biological factors on depression in adolescents,and these findings indicate the significance of adolescents' resilience and PSS in adverse circumstances,and further support that individuals vagal tone might be a susceptive factor to adverse circumstances.