Xue GC, Zhang LW, Ma CY. Confronting childhood maltreatment and promoting trauma-informed care: Safeguarding the mental health of young and middle-aged adults. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(3): 114110 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i3.114110]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Guo-Chang Xue, MD, Chief Physician, Department of Pediatrics, Wuxi Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Soochow University, No. 999 Liangxi Road, Wuxi 214062, Jiangsu Province, China. gcxue@163.com
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Psychiatry
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Editorial
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This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Mar 19, 2026 (publication date) through Feb 27, 2026
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Publication Name
World Journal of Psychiatry
ISSN
2220-3206
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Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
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Xue GC, Zhang LW, Ma CY. Confronting childhood maltreatment and promoting trauma-informed care: Safeguarding the mental health of young and middle-aged adults. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(3): 114110 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i3.114110]
World J Psychiatry. Mar 19, 2026; 16(3): 114110 Published online Mar 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i3.114110
Confronting childhood maltreatment and promoting trauma-informed care: Safeguarding the mental health of young and middle-aged adults
Guo-Chang Xue, Li-Wen Zhang, Chao-Ying Ma
Guo-Chang Xue, Li-Wen Zhang, Chao-Ying Ma, Department of Pediatrics, Wuxi Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Soochow University, Wuxi 214062, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Xue GC conceived and designed the article; Xue GC and Zhang LW wrote the manuscript; Xue GC and Ma CY reviewed and edited the manuscript; and all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Corresponding author: Guo-Chang Xue, MD, Chief Physician, Department of Pediatrics, Wuxi Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Soochow University, No. 999 Liangxi Road, Wuxi 214062, Jiangsu Province, China. gcxue@163.com
Received: September 15, 2025 Revised: October 27, 2025 Accepted: December 15, 2025 Published online: March 19, 2026 Processing time: 168 Days and 8 Hours
Abstract
Childhood maltreatment, particularly emotional abuse and neglect, casts a long shadow over mental health, as highlighted by a recent study linking these experiences to subthreshold depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder in young and middle-aged adults. The findings underscore emotional abuse and neglect as particularly potent risk factors, emphasizing the urgent need for trauma-informed approaches in depression prevention and management. This article explores the implications of these results, advocating for early identification of childhood maltreatment to mitigate long-term depressive outcomes and calling for integrated strategies across clinical, public health, and policy domains.
Core Tip: This article focuses on a study linking childhood maltreatment to young and middle-aged adults’ subthreshold depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder. The study has found that childhood maltreatment raises depression risk, which is strongly correlated with emotional abuse and neglect. It advocates for trauma-informed care for treatment and early maltreatment identification for prevention, calling for joint efforts to safeguard the mental health of young and middle-aged adults.
