Citation
Smalley, Nicole (2022). ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES, DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS, AND BINGE DRINKING: A MEDIATION ANALYSIS.Abstract
Sixty-one percent of adults in a national CDC study reported experiencing at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), and 1 in 6 reported 4 or more ACEs. The purpose of this hierarchical regression analysis is to target gaps in research specific to examining the relationships between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), depressive symptoms experienced in adolescence, and binge drinking behaviors in emerging adulthood using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. Longitudinal, secondary data from the NationalLongitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health dataset (Add Health) (Harris et al., 2009) was used in this study. Data was collected in four waves of surveys and in-person interviews starting with adolescents in grades 7th through 12th and followed them into emerging adulthood and 6,504
adolescents were used to collect the survey data used in this analysis. The predictor variable in this study is the presence of ACEs, the outcome variable is binge drinking in emerging adulthood, and the mediating variable is depressive symptoms experienced in adolescence. This study aims to determine if there are statistically significant relationships between these variables and if there is a mediating effect of depressive symptoms on the relationship between ACEs and binge drinking in emerging adulthood. Results indicate that there is a significant relationship between ACEs and depressive symptoms and there is no mediating effect of depressive symptoms on the relationship between ACEs and binge drinking in emerging adulthood.