the role of childhood trauma in adolescent depression: investigating the mediating role of emotion regulation

Aim: this study aimed to determine how cognitive emotion regulation mediates the association between the severity of depression and childhood trauma.methods: this study was categorized as fundamental in nature and used a cross-sectional and correlational design. in 2025, it investigated the connections among depression, cognitive emotion regulation, and childhood trauma in adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18. a multi-stage cluster random sampling technique was used to gather data from 384 secondary school students in semnan province.the children's depression inventory (cdi), the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire–short form (cerq-short), and the childhood trauma questionnaire (ctq) were among the research tools. sem (structural equation modeling) was used to analyze the data using spss 26 and amos 24.results: the results of sem showed that emotion regulation played a significant mediating role in the association between childhood trauma and adolescent depression. childhood trauma was negatively correlated with adaptive strategies (β = -0.381), and positively correlated with increased use of maladaptive strategies (β = 0.428). furthermore, adaptive strategies had a negative effect on depression (β = -0.664), whereas maladaptive strategies had a positive effect (β = 0.310). the association between childhood trauma and depression was found to have significant indirect effects via maladaptive (β = 0.132), and adaptive (β = 0.252) strategies, according to bootstrap analysis.conclusion: emotion regulation is a big part of the link between childhood trauma and depression in teens. improving emotional regulation skills may help keep people in this group from getting depressed or help them get better. aim: this study aimed to determine how cognitive emotion regulation mediates the association between the severity of depression and childhood trauma.methods: this study was categorized as fundamental in nature and used a cross-sectional and correlational design. in 2025, it investigated the connections among depression, cognitive emotion regulation, and childhood trauma in adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18. a multi-stage cluster random sampling technique was used to gather data from 384 secondary school students in semnan province.the children's depression inventory (cdi), the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire–short form (cerq-short), and the childhood trauma questionnaire (ctq) were among the research tools. sem (structural equation modeling) was used to analyze the data using spss 26 and amos 24.results: the results of sem showed that emotion regulation played a significant mediating role in the association between childhood trauma and adolescent depression. childhood trauma was negatively correlated with adaptive strategies (β = -0.381), and positively correlated with increased use of maladaptive strategies (β = 0.428). furthermore, adaptive strategies had a negative effect on depression (β = -0.664), whereas maladaptive strategies had a positive effect (β = 0.310). the association between childhood trauma and depression was found to have significant indirect effects via maladaptive (β = 0.132), and adaptive (β = 0.252) strategies, according to bootstrap analysis.conclusion: emotion regulation is a big part of the link between childhood trauma and depression in teens. improving emotional regulation skills may help keep people in this group from getting depressed or help them get better.