The Impact of Adverse Childhood Events on the Development of Long COVID

The COVID-19 virus led to international negative health outcomes beginning in the fall of 2019, through which current repercussions are still being felt. As the virus continues to infect the worldwide population, symptoms remaining after acute infection has ended are coming under focus as an area of further study. Certain patients infected with the initial COVID-19 virus continue to experience negative physical and mental health symptoms after recovering from the initial acute infection; however, the reasons for these lingering symptoms and variables that may impact this situation remain unclear. In line with this, research has demonstrated that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a factor associated with poor long-term health outcomes. These negative health outcomes can range from an increased risk of psychological distress to chronic illness and disease incidence. Examining a student population with a reported history of ACEs and a history of COVID-19 infection may provide important information about mechanisms that could impact disease duration and severity. Thus, the central aim of this study was to examine the mediating relationship of psychological distress between historical ACEs and a yes/no report of experiencing symptoms post-acute COVID-19 infection. Binary and multinomial logistic regression were used to examine the odds of reporting different COVID-19 outcomes. The results of the logistic regressions found a significant and positive relationship between the number of ACEs and psychopathology scores but no relationship with COVID outcomes. The mediation analyses did not find that psychopathology significantly mediated any relationship between the number of ACEs and COVID-19 outcomes.