The relationship between personality, childhood trauma and mental health in adulthood

Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je utvrditi odnos između ličnosti, traume u djetinjstvu i mentalnog zdravlja odraslih. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo ukupno 454 odrasle osobe (210 muškaraca i 244 žene). U svrhu ispitivanja ličnosti koristio se Upitnik velikih pet crta ličnosti (John i Sarivastava, 1999), za ispitivanje emocionalnog i fizičkog zlostavljanja te zanemarivanja u djetinjstvu upotrijebljen je Upitnik o zlostavljanju u djetinjstvu (Karlović, 2001), a za utvrđivanje pozitivnog i negativnog mentalnog zdravlja te indeksa mentalnog zdravlja Inventar mentalnog zdravlja (Veit i Ware, 1983). Hijerarhijskim regresijskim analizama utvrđeno je kako osobine ličnosti imaju najveći doprinos objašnjenju općeg mentalnog zdravlja, kao i pozitivnog i negativnog mentalnog zdravlja. Nadalje, rezultati pokazuju kako su emocionalno zlostavljanje i zanemarivanje značajno povezani s mentalnim zdravljem odraslih. Mentalnom zdravlju muškaraca doprinosi nizak neuroticizam, niska otvorenost k iskustvu te nisko zanemarivanje u djetinjstvu, a mentalnom zdravlju žena nizak neuroticizam, visoka ekstraverzija i nisko zanemarivanje u djetinjstvu.The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between personality, childhood trauma and mental health in adults. This study included a total of 454 adult participants (210 men and 244 women). Big Five Inventory (John i Sarivastava, 1999) was used for the purpose of personality examination, Childhood abuse questionnaire (Karlović, 2001) was employed for measurement of childhood trauma in the form of emotional and physical abuse and neglect while Mental Health Inventory (Veit i Ware, 1983) was used for asessment of participants' psychological distress, psychological well-being and mental health index. Hierarchical regressive analyses was used and it has shown that personality traits have the largest contribution to overall mental health as well as psychological distress and psychological well-being. Furthermore, the results indicate that childhood emotional abuse and neglect have a significant connection to adults' mental health. Mens' overall mental health is connected to low neuroticism, low openness to experience and low childhood neglect, and womens' overall mental health is connected to low neuroticism, high extraversion and low childhood neglect