Autor:innen:
Andrea Jobst, München (Germany)
Matthias Reinhard, München (Germany)
Barbara Barton, München (Germany)
Goerigk Stephan, München (Germany)
Tabea Nenov-Matt, München (Germany)
Julia Dewald-Kaufmann, München (Germany)
Richard Musil, München (Germany)
Frank Padberg, München (Germany)
Introduction: High Rejection Sensitivity (RS) has been identified as a key component of social interaction problems for several mental disorders and seems to overlap diagnoses. High RS might transdiagnostically emerge from childhood maltreatment (CM), such as chronic parental rejection and abuse. Identifying (CM) as underlying transdiagnostic construct for high RS might deepen our understanding of interpersonal problems.
Methods: A transdiagnostic sample of 441 participants (patients with borderline personality disorder, chronic depression, recurrent depressive disorder and healthy controls) were enrolled and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (RSQ). From the total transdiagnostic sample subjects scoring above the 80th percentile RSQ (at least average RS) were selected for further analysis. We analyzed associations between RS and CTQ.
Results: In the transdiagnostic sample, results revealed a significant association between a low, middle and high trauma-group (as defined by data driven approach using cut-off values at the 33.33 and 66.66 percentile creating equal groups) and RS, with the high trauma group eliciting the highest mean of RSQ scores (F(2,342) = 68.75, p < .001; f = 0.63)). Results of cluster-analysis identifying distinct constellations of trauma to be transdiagnostically associated with high RS will be presented.
Discussion: Severity and constellations of CM seem to transdiagnostically play a crucial role for the development of high RS. Further analysis should distangle disorder-specific effects from general effects of this trajectory. Broader transdiagnostic surveys following the TRANSD recommendations for psychiatry should be carried out to evaluate the pilot results and additionally address behavioral/interpersonal coping. Results might potentially set the path to further improvements of psychotherapeutical interventions that might appropriately address interpersonal difficulties.