Validity of distant recall of maltreatment in childhood: Results from the French SIRS cohort study, 2005-2010

Introduction. Retrospective reports of adverse childhood experiences could be subject to recall bias and underestimated. But adverse childhood experiences could also be recalled to a greater degree by psychologically impaired individuals as the result of internal biographical coherence. The aim of the present work was to estimate the validity of distant recall of abuse in childhood after a 5-year intervall. The hypothesis was that this validity was lower in the group with depression either in 2005 or in 2010 than in the safe mental health group. Methods. The study was based on the 2 waves of the SIRS (Health, Inequalities and Social Ruptures) cohort study, a longitudinal survey of the general adult population of the Paris metropolitan area. 1430 adults were interviewed in face to face in 2005 and in 2010. Maltreatment in childhood was defined as exposure to interparental violence physical abuse and/or sexual abuse. Statistics: Kappa of Cohen(K). Results. Respectively, in the safe mental health group and in the group with depression either in 2005 or in 2010, K was respectively 0.51(0.45-0.57;p<0.05) and 0.60(0.47-0.74) for the item “Exposure to interparental violence”; K was 0.45(0.39-0.51;p<0.05) and 0.52(0.39-0.65;p<0.05) for the item “Physical abuse in childhood” and K was 0.64(0.59-0.70;p<0.05) and 0.68(0.55-0.81;p<0.05) for the item “Sexual abuse in childhood”. Conclusion. In the SIRS cohort, recalling childhood sexual abuse or maltreatment upon a single question could not have been connoted by the subject's emotional state during the face-to-face interview, which, in the more psychologically fragile subjects, would not have induced same-source bias.