Review Article

Depression and Psychological Trauma: An Overview Integrating Current Research and Specific Evidence of Studies in the Treatment of Depression in Public Mental Health Services in Chile

Table 1

Prevalences of childhood trauma among general morbidity patients and psychiatric patients in Chile.

Place/authors SampleAt least one item in
Marshall scale*
% sexual abuse

4 General hospitals
(Weil et al., 2004 [30])
505 general medicine patients,
both genders (263 men and 242 women)
54.7% 6.8%
Hospital Curico
(Vitriol et al., 2006 [28])
130 women ingressed for severe depression 87.5% 42%
CES Curico-Centro
(Cancino and Asenjo, 2006 [29])
510 patients (442 women and 68 men)
ingressed for nonsevere depression
84% 38.8%
Hospital TALCA
(Salgado, Potthoff, 2012) unpublished observation
presented at the 21st World
Congress for Social Psychiatry,
Lisbon, Portugal, 2013
593 psychiatric patients
(453 women and 140 men)
52.1% 35.2%

Marshall scale [31] is a screening that inquires whether an individual has memories of having one or more of the following traumatic experiences before the age of 15: traumatic separation from a parent or caregiver, alcohol or drug abuse by a family member, physical violence between parents or caregivers, systematic punishment by parent or caregiver, physical injury associated with punishment, and forced sexual contact with a relative or a nonrelative.