Childhood verbal abuse linked to ill health later in life

Parents who ridicule, threaten or humiliate their children risk leaving them with a 64% higher chance of having poor mental health as an adult, a study has found.

- Tobi Thomas

The research also found a reduction in childhood physical abuse experienced among the research's participants over time while the prevalence of verbal abuse increased.

Published in BMJ Open, the study gathered data of 20,687 adults from seven studies published between 2012 and 2024.

The studies involved questions on childhood physical and verbal abuse using the validated Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) tool and the Warwick-Edinburgh mental wellbeing scale to measure individual and combined components of adult mental wellbeing.

Participants were asked over a two-week period about their mental wellbeing, with responses being given a score to determine whether the participant had a low or high sense of mental wellbeing.