Childhood exposure to emotional abuse and later life stress among Kenyan women: a mediation analysis of cross-sectional data.

Background And Objective: We explore whether perceived stress among Kenyan mothers is predicted by childhood exposure to emotional abuse - both witnessed among parents and experienced directly. Further, we explore whether this association is mediated by social support, family functioning and polygynous marriage.

Design: We used cross-sectional data from a systematic random sample (n = 1974) of mothers in semi-rural Kenya.