CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MOOD STATES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN MAINSTREAM SCHOOL CHILDREN AND CHILD LABORERS

Abstract

The current study aimed to investigate the association between childhood trauma and mood states in children and to compare child laborers and non-working/mainstream school children concerning childhood trauma and mood states. For this purpose, a sample of 400 boys (mainstream school children=200; child laborers=200) in the age range of 6-16 years (M=12.03; SD=2.03) was selected through a purposive sampling technique from the Faisalabad district, Pakistan. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Bernstein, et al., 1994) and the Mood Questionnaire (Rieffe et al., 2002) were used for data collection. Data analysis was carried out through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v-25). The Pearson product-moment correlation and regression analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between childhood trauma and mood problems, as well as childhood trauma, appeared to be a significant predictor of mood problems in the participants. Furthermore, in the t-test, child laborers significantly scored higher on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and negative mood states (i.e., anger, sadness, and fear) whereas, they scored lower on a positive mood state (i.e., happiness) as compared to mainstream school children. Based on the current findings, the implications of the study and suggestions for future research were discussed.