Previous research suggests that various types of childhood maltreatment frequently co-occur and confer risk for multiple psychiatric diagnoses. This may mean that childhood maltreatment increases vulnerability to a great number of specific psychiatric disorders through diverse and specific mechanisms or that childhood maltreatment engenders a generalised liability to dimensions of psychopathology. Gender differences have been suggested to play a role in this associations.

To compare demographic and clinical characteristics of young adults with history of childhood maltreatment admitted to a psychiatric unit, according to gender.

To delineate the impact of gender on the psychopathology of young adults submitted to childhood maltreatment.

Retrospective data of patients aged 15 and 23 and admitted to a psychiatric outpatient unit, from December 2010 and December 2013, were reviewed. The demographic and clinical characteristics of the two genders were compared.

Childhood maltreatment was associated with elevated odds of mood, anxiety and drug disorders in both genders, but gender differences emerged with physical abuse associated only with externalising liability in men, and only with internalising liability in women. There were no gender differences in age of onset.

Childhood maltreatment have gender-specific consequences for the expression of psychopathology, suggesting gender-specific aetiological pathways between maltreatment and psychopathology.