ویژگی مشکلات تنظیم احساسات مربوط به اضطراب در اوایل نوجوانی

Etiological models identify difficulties in emotion regulation as potential contributors to the development and maintenance of anxiety. To date, studies with adolescents have not tested whether different types of anxiety symptoms are related to different emotion regulation difficulties. The current study aimed to examine specificity of associations between emotion regulation difficulties and symptoms of social and generalized anxiety in early adolescence. Ninety adolescents (ages 11–14 years) completed measures of emotion regulation and anxiety symptoms. Social and generalized anxiety symptoms showed similar bivariate correlations with emotion regulation. However, when controlling for generalized anxiety, social anxiety symptoms were uniquely related to emotion understanding, acceptance, evaluation, and reactivity. Generalized anxiety symptoms were uniquely related to emotion modification. The current study suggests that social and generalized anxiety symptoms have both common and unique associations with emotion regulation difficulties in early adolescence, and has implications for which emotion regulation skills to target in clinical interventions.

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental health problem affecting children and adolescents (Brown et al., 2008), with 31.9% of adolescents experiencing an anxiety disorder in their lifetime (Merikangas et al., 2010). Etiological models have identified difficulties in emotion regulation as factors that may contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety (Brumariu and Kerns, 2010, Jacob et al., 2011, Southam-Gerow and Kendall, 2002 and Thompson, 2001). The current study extends earlier work on emotion regulation and anxiety by examining the specificity of emotion regulation difficulties in relation to symptoms of social anxiety and generalized anxiety in early adolescence. We focus on these two types of anxiety because, while they can co-occur, they are hypothesized to show differential associations with emotion regulation (Mennin et al., 2007, Mennin et al., 2009 and Turk et al., 2005).