EFFECTS OF ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES ON LIFE SATISFACTION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS

Abstract

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are linked to many mental and physical health issues in adulthood, evident in the growing body of neurobiology and epidemiology research. With greater emphasis on resilience and biopsychological adaptability, more studies are showing that individuals with ACEs can still have high levels of Life Satisfaction when they come to terms with their adverse experiences and move beyond them. This is often so when they possess Resilient attributes such as Self-Esteem and Empathy. A secondary data analysis was conducted to find out how ACEs are associated with the perceived Life Satisfaction of university students, and whether Self-Esteem and Empathy play mitigating roles in this association. Life Satisfaction was found to be positively associated with ACEs and the interaction between ACEs and Self-Esteem. Interestingly, the interaction between ACEs and Empathy was negatively associated with Life Satisfaction. Among the four subtypes of ACEs, only Emotional Abuse and Neglect yielded negative associations with Life Satisfaction, while Physical Abuse and Sexual Abuse did not present any associations. As such, this study calls for a greater emphasis to be trauma-informed when working with individuals with ACEs, while incorporating resilient qualities-finding during intervention to help these individuals to reintegrate resiliently back to homeostasis. Finding healthy resolution for their adverse experiences would increase their likelihood of experiencing greater life satisfaction, preventing the development of poor psychosocial issues later in life.