A better understanding of the impact of childhood trauma on depression in early psychosis: A differential item functioning approach

Background: Childhood trauma (CT) has been shown to impact depressive symptoms measured broadly in early psychosis patients. Beyond the broad intensity of such impact, less is known about which depressive features are more impacted.

Methods: Patients of a specialized early intervention programme were evaluated after the first two and six months of treatment with the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). We used the first assessment available. We estimated an Item-response model to reveal potential differential item functioning (DIF) in order to highlight depressive features that could be impacted differently than others by experiences of abuse (sexual physical and emotional) and neglect (physical and emotional).

Results: Two hundred and sixty-two recent onset patients with psychosis were assessed. Results at the beginning of the Treatment and Early Intervention in Psychosis Program (TIPP) showed that abuse but not neglect was associated with more severe depression levels, measured at a global MADRS score. Concerning specific depressive symptoms, concentration difficulties were left largely unaffected by abuse in contrast with other aspects of depression.

Conclusions: The cognitive item of the depressive dimension assessed by the MADRS was not impacted by experiences of abuse, while the remaining subdomains involving anxiety, suicidality, somatic symptoms, and anhedonia were. Trials focusing on improving the impact of depression in traumatised individuals should account for the possible diluting effect of concentration when measuring the depression broadly. DIF is a promising method to better understand the impact many variables may have on various psychological dimensions at the item level.