{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.056776556776556776, 'fraction_numerical': 0.03642653642653643, 'mean_word_length': 4.497762863534676, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 4, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Childhood Maltreatment in Women with Borderline Personality Disorder, Chronic Depression, and Episodic Depression, and in Healthy Controls

current BPD were excluded. Accordingly, the diagnoses were based on the SCID-I and SCID-II interviews conducted by trained clinicians. Concerning HC, subjects were excluded with a Beck Depression Inventory score (BDI-II) ≥ 14 and who reported any type of mental disorder in the past. All study participants gave their written informed consent before inclusion in the respective studies. The pooled sample consisted of 501 females (BPD = 299, CD = 99, ED = 58, HC = 45). The mean age of the whole sample was 33.7 years (SD = 11.5, range = 18–65), with those with ED (mean age = 41.7 years) and CD (mean age = 42.9 years) being significantly older and those with BPD (mean age = 28.5 years) being significantly younger than HC (mean age = 37.3 years) (all p < 0.05). Self-reported CM was assessed by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-SF) [7] measuring 5 domains (CTQ subscales) of CM: emotional, physical, and sexual abuse as well as emotional and physical neglect. The CTQ has been widely used across studies, showing good psychometric properties. For these analyses, the presence of CM was defined as at least moderate to severe CM in at least 1 of the 5 domains [7] . The severity of overall CM (CTQ overall score) as well as of the 5 CM domains in the 4 study groups were compared using analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) controlling for individual differences in age. Pair-wise comparisons were conducted with Tukey post hoc tests. As variances of CTQ scales differed across groups, we used the heteroscedasticity-corrected covariance matrix. The frequency of overall CM was compared across groups using logistic regression analysis, again controlling for age. The significance level for each analysis was set at α = 5%. All analyses were carried out with the statistical platform R 3.3 using the packages car and multcomp. Concerning the overall CM ( Fig. 1 a), all patient groups showed higher overall CTQ scores than HC (BPD: adjusted mean = 68.7, 95% CI = 66.2–71.2; CD: mean = 51.3, 47.2–55.4; ED: mean = 49.3, 44.2–54.4; HC: mean = 31.3, 29.1–33.6; all p < 0.001). In addition, BPD patients showed higher scores than CD and ED patients (all p < 0.001). Of note, the ED and CD groups did not differ significantly from each other ( p = 0.93). Regarding the 5 CM domains ( Fig. 1 b–f), the BPD group showed the highest subscale scores, while the HC showed the lowest scores. Whereas BPD patients showed a higher CM load in all CTQ domains compared to the CD, ED, and HC groups (all p < 0.001), CD and ED patients did not differ among each other in all domains and showed higher scores than HC in 4 CTQ domains. However, concerning sexual abuse, differences failed to reach significance (HC vs. ED: p = 0.05; HC vs. CD: p = 0.05). The observed frequency of different CM domains in the 4 groups is shown in Figure 1 g. Participants who had experienced all 5 domains of CM were most frequent among the BPD patients. After controlling for age, the estimated probabilities for the presence of any domain of CM were 17.7% (9.1–31.5) for HC, 62.5% (48.3–74.8) for ED, 68.9% (57.7–78.3) for CD, and 91.6% (87.9– 94.3) for BPD. The odds for having experienced CM were signifiChildhood maltreatment (CM) typically comprises repeated exposure to multiple domains of active maltreatment (emotional, physical, and sexual abuse) and/or passive maltreatment (emotional or physical neglect) [1] . Numerous studies report that CM is highly prevalent and constitutes a risk factor for mental disorders including major depression and borderline personality disorder (BPD) [1–6] . However, transdiagnostic studies investigating the occurrence of CM among mental disorders and comparing differences in severity, domains, and frequency of CM are rare and yielded contradictory results [2–6] . Thus, in this study we compared CM in a large sample ( N = 501) including patients with BPD, chronic depression (CD) versus episodic depression (ED), and healthy controls (HC). These patient groups were selected due to their inconsistencies in reported research findings. In addition, they are common in clinical practice and – with respect to BPD and CD – difficult to treat. Data sets from different inand outpatient studies conducted in 4 centers (Berlin, Freiburg, Mannheim, and Munich) were pooled. Inclusion criteria were female gender (due to reasons of comparability, male subjects were excluded, because the BPD group was mainly recruited from a treatment-seeking female population), age 18–65 years, and fluency in German. For ED, CD, and BPD, further inclusion criteria were meeting the criteria for the particular disorder defined by the DSM-IV. Of note, ED and CD patients with a Received: August 1, 2015 Accepted after revision: October 22, 2017 Published online: January 6, 2018