Childhood maltreatment influences coping in youths with major depression and bipolar depression through resilience and impulsivity

Empirical research on the link between childhood maltreatment and coping styles in youths with depression remains scarce. This study explores the relationship between childhood maltreatment and coping styles in youths with major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar depression (BD). We recruited 277 youths with depression and 98 healthy controls (HC) using convenience sampling. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), the adapted Chinese version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11), and the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ). Differences between groups were assessed using ANOVA and Chi-square tests. The mediating roles of resilience and impulsivity between childhood maltreatment and coping style were analyzed with the PROCESS macro for SPSS. Among youths with depression, resilience and impulsivity were found to mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and coping style, with resilience accounting for 37.75% and impulsivity 17.72% of the total effect. Additionally, childhood maltreatment indirectly influenced coping style through resilience, which subsequently affected impulsivity, explaining 7.95% of the total effect. No direct effect of childhood maltreatment on coping style was observed in the BD group, and impulsivity did not mediate this relationship in the HC group. The study highlights that childhood maltreatment is directly related to coping styles in youths with depression and indirectly affects them through resilience and impulsivity. These findings suggest that improving resilience and managing impulsivity could enhance positive coping styles in this population.