Abstract

It is still unclear whether childhood traumas cause depression by first decreasing the individual's resilience and impairing stress perception or by first increasing the individual's stress perception and impairing resilience. The aim of this study is to investigate the mediating role of resilience and perceived stress in the relationship between childhood trauma and depression in young adults. The convenience sample of the cross-sectional correlational study consisted of 481 young adults with at least one childhood trauma. The data was analysed with structural equation modeling. Childhood traumas may increase perceived stress level by decreasing resilience and both of them may lead to depressive symptoms. At the same time, it has been found that childhood traumas may decrease resilience by increasing the perceived stress level and both may lead to depressive symptoms. The childhood traumas-resilience-perceived stress-depression pathway and childhood traumas-perceived stress-resilience-depression pathway were found to be significant.

Key words: Childhood trauma, child neglect, resilience, stress, depression, psychotraumatology