(PS4-C62) Applying the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology to Predict Specificity in Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

The Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) highlights two key spectra of adverse childhood events: threat and deprivation (McLaughlin & Sheridan, 2016; Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2014). The current study builds on work from this dimensional approach by examining threat and deprivation stressors as predictors of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescence. This study takes the additional step to control for the type of psychopathology that is not the outcome variable (i.e., controlling for externalizing when predicting internalizing and vice versa). Accounting for unique associations between the outcome variable and a stressor by holding constant the other type of psychopathology eliminates shared variance between internalizing and externalizing symptoms and the stressor, thus allowing specificity to be examined (Gruhn et al., 2016; Caron et al., 2006).
The current study investigated associations of specific threat and deprivation stressors with self-reported internalizing and externalizing problems, measured by the Youth Self-Report (YSR; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001), in a sample of 95 adolescents. Using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ; Bernstein et al., 1994), we examined two deprivation events, (emotional neglect [EN], physical neglect [PN]) and two threat events (emotional abuse [EA], physical abuse [PA]). In bivariate correlation analyses, EA and PA were significantly correlated with externalizing problems (p < .05), and EA and EN were significantly correlated with internalizing problems (p < .05). In multiple regression analyses, threat and deprivation events were tested predicting internalizing symptoms while controlling for externalizing, and subsequently were tested predicting externalizing symptoms while controlling for internalizing. These analyses show support for deprivation predicting internalizing problems while holding externalizing constant, where there is a unique effect for only EN (β = .34, p = .011). In analyses predicting externalizing problems, only a threat event, EA, was a significant predictor (β =.38, p = .001) after controlling for internalizing symptoms. These findings provide support for the DMAP approach to adversity, with support for specificity in the association of deprivation events as predictors of internalizing problems and threat events as predictors of externalizing problems. Furthermore, these findings point to the importance of emotional ACEs as predictors of both internalizing and externalizing problems.