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The research also shows that abused individuals are less likely to respond to depression treatments.
Scientists examined pooled data from 26 separate studies involving more than 23,000 participants. The "meta-analysis" revealed that people maltreated in childhood are twice as likely as those with no history of abuse to develop multiple and long-lasting episodes of depression.
Lead investigator Dr Andrea Danese, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said: "Identifying those at risk of multiple and long-lasting depressive episodes is crucial from a public health perspective.
"The results of our study indicate that childhood maltreatment is associated both with an increased risk of developing recurrent and persistent episodes of depression, and with an increased risk of responding poorly to treatment.
"Therefore, prevention and early therapeutic interventions targeting childhood maltreatment could prove vital in helping prevent the major health burden owing to depression."
She added: "Knowing that individuals with a history of maltreatment won't respond as well to treatment may also be valuable for clinicians in determining patients' prognosis."
One in ten children worldwide is exposed to maltreatment including psychological, physical or sexual abuse or neglect.
Previous research has shown that abused individuals are prone to abnormalities in biological systems sensitive to psychological stress both in childhood and adult life.
These may include the brain and hormonal and immune systems.
The research is published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Reader Comments
The trend in psychiatry has been to correlate strong emotional responses with neural chemistry problems. This has led to a huge upswing in the use of drugs for "mental health" purposes.
However, there is no easy way with this theory (although I am sure they will try their best to find it), to link something that happened when you were a child to your neural chemistry as an adult. That is, not without the link of memory.
While they also have memory tied in to neural chemistry, this is basically BS and psychiatry knows it. There are people who can recall things that happened to them when they were young with total clarity 60 or 70 years later. And you can't tell me their neural situation didn't change over that period of time.
So this re-opens an older view of the mind once held by psychoanalysis that they probably got from the mystics, who used to be the only ones who had any worthwhile data about such things. And that was, essentially, that memory was some sort of energetic phenomenon - the whole mind was - and that a being, to get well, had to somehow achieve some degree of control over these energies.
This opens the door a crack, then, to a communication (energetic) approach to mental health, rather than a drug-based approach. While mainstream psychiatry may ignore this data, there are some psychiatrists around who are actually interested in helping people and might be able to use this study to support their more humanistic methods.
Right now, the documentation I know about indicates that a reduction of stressors is the only treatment for mental illness more effective than placebos. This means getting the person enough sleep, better nutrition, real medical attention if needed, into a less frantic environment and disconnected from any psychopaths. Most people respond very well when these things are done! But you can't live your whole life in a restimulation-free world. So there has to be some way to address the fact that you were abused when you were a kid, or you abused someone when you were a kid, or whatever happens to be in your mind that keeps bugging you. And that involves real communication with another being.
This study, in its minor little way, points back to the need for such a therapy - that works. It exists now. If some are inspired to look for it, perhaps they will find it.