Self-reported Emotion Regulation Strategies in Children and Adolescents with Mental Disorders

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is extensively researched in the context of psychopathology. It is quite controversial if deficits in ER are related to psychopathology across disorders or specifically linked to certain forms of psychopathology. Furthermore, it appears unclear if there are differences in ER depending on the specific emotion to be regulated. There are only few studies comparing different forms of psychopathology in terms of ER, specifically in childhood and adolescence. We explored ER in a consecutive clinical sample seeking help in two outpatient university clinics (N=129, age: 7-17 years, 45% female). In a first step, the ER of all children and adolescents seeking professional help for emotional and behavioral problems was compared with the ER-characteristics of children and adolescents identified in school samples. In a second step, the clinical sample was divided into different groups of psychopathology, comparing the associations of different types of psychopathology with ER. ER in the clinical sample differed significantly from children and adolescents in school settings. The clinical sample was particularly characterized by a lack of adaptive strategies, and only partially by an increased use of maladaptive strategies. Further analysis revealed no specific deficits in the ER depending on types of psychopathology. The findings suggest a transdiagnostic and emotion-overarching conceptualization of ER in childhood and adolescence.