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Abstract Background The aim of this present study was to compare the prevalence and type of trauma experienced by community sample with the outpatient sample with mental disorders. Methods A total of 354 outpatients, aged 14–35 years old, with mood disorders, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, adjustment disorder and anxiety disorder were recruited from a tertiary psychiatric hospital. A total of 100 healthy controls were recruited from the Singapore general population by snowballing. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) designed to measure childhood trauma and the severity (e.g., physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect and emotional neglect) was administered to participants. Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics were obtained from interviews with the participants and from outpatients’ medical records, respectively. Independent sample t tests and Chi-square tests were used to investigate the differences between the outpatient and community samples. Results Overall the CTQ-SF total and domain scores indicated that outpatient sample experienced higher rate of traumatic life events in childhood than community sample. Two most reported trauma types were emotional abuse (n = 81, 59.1%) and physical neglect (n = 74, 54%) reported by the mood disorder group. In the community sample, emotional neglect (n = 46, 46%) and physical neglect (n = 18, 18%) were the most commonly reported trauma type. Overall outpatient sample (n = 80, 22.6%) and community sample (n = 28, 28%) reported at least one type of trauma. Conclusion The findings indicate higher rates of CTQ-SF total and domain scores in outpatient sample demonstrating a higher rate of traumatic life events in childhood compared to community sample. Further research in childhood trauma is needed to improve the knowledge in psychiatric clinic practices.