Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Reviewed by: Richard G. Tietjen, University of Toledo, United States. This article was submitted to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, a section of the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Background: Child maltreatment is related to oxytocin OT , which is related to social functioning. It may hamper the OT level to avoid a harmful situation and increase the OT level to adapt to the situation using a tend-and-befriend stress reaction. Objective: This study aims to examine the association between the accumulation of moderateβsevere childhood maltreatment and salivary OT levels in Japanese adolescents.
Methods: Child maltreatment experiences were measured with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. The salivary OT levels were assessed by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. A multivariate regression analysis was performed to see the association between the accumulation of child maltreatment types and the salivary OT levels adjusted for covariates i. Results: Physical abuse was associated with higher OT, while emotional neglect showed an inverse association with OT. OT was the lowest with one maltreatment type group, which was significantly lower than the non-maltreatment group.
As the number of maltreatment types increased from one maltreatment type to 2β3 types and to 4β5 types, OT also increased. Conclusion: We found herein a U -shaped association between the accumulation of child maltreatment and salivary OT levels. Also, different types of maltreatment had varied effects on the salivary OT.
Further study is needed to elucidate the non-linear association between child maltreatment and OT levels. Keywords: alternative care, physical abuse, emotional neglect, childhood trauma questionnaire, oxytocin.
