How does depression facilitate psychological difficulties in children? The mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies.

Abstract

Knowing the processes of emotion regulation that children use to respond to stressful situations is essential to analyse the development of psychopathology. The objectives of this research were to study the use of nine cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) in depressed children, compared with nondepressed children, and to analyse their possible mediating effects on the relationship between childhood depression and several areas related to child psychological adjustment. The sample comprised 336 children (46.7% girls) aged 8-12 years. Participants completed measures on depression symptoms (Child Depression Inventory), psychological strengths and difficulties (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) and CERS (Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Spanish kids). Correlations and multiple regression analyses were conducted to test whether CERS and child gender and age predicted child depression. Mediation analyses were run to identify the CERS that mediate the relationship between depression and daily psychological adjustment. On multiple regression, children who score higher in self-blame (β = .18, p < .01), catastrophizing (β = .24, p < .001), and other-blame (β = .14, p ≤ .01) but lower in positive reappraisal (β = -.15, p ≤ .01) and females (β = .10, p < .05) were more likely to present higher scores in depression. The maladaptive CERS "other-blame" mediated a positive relationship between depression and conduct problems and between depression and peer problems. Other-blame mediated a negative relationship between depression and prosocial behaviour. In conclusion, this research provides evidence of which specific CERS mediate the emergence of psychopathology in vulnerable children, and provides clues for the proper orientation of psychological interventions in childhood.