Verbal abuse is as harmful to a child as physical abuse, a new study says.
People who experienced physical abuse as a child were at a 50% increased risk of reporting low mental health in adulthood compared with those with no abuse, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal BMJ Open. Those who experienced verbal abuse had a 60% increase in likelihood of low well-being.
The prevalence of physical abuse in people in England and Wales has halved, from 20% in people born from 1950 to 1979 to 10% in those born in or after 2000, according to the study. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, has increased.
In the United States, more than 60% of people participating in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported experiencing emotional abuse, and 31.8% reported physical abuse. The survey listed emotional instead of verbal abuse but asked about similar behaviors as the most recent study.
In this latest analysis, researchers examined data from over 20,000 adults across seven studies conducted in England and Wales. The study team evaluated childhood experiences using the Adverse Childhood Experiences tool and components of adult mental health using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale.
The “results suggest that verbal abuse in childhood can leave mental health scars as deep and long-lasting as those caused by physical abuse,” said lead study author Dr. Mark Bellis, professor of public health and behavioral sciences at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom.
The authors of the study acknowledged its limitations, namely that they were unable to measure the severity of either type of abuse or the reasons for these trends in changing prevalence for physical and verbal abuse.
“Although this study does not examine the reasons for these trends, it is vital that we do not simply replace one form of childhood trauma with another,” Bellis added. “That’s why we must go beyond telling parents what not to do and instead offer clear, practical support and guidance that allows them to raise their children through healthy, nurturing relationships.”