Keil Verena, Asbrand Julia, Tuschen-Caffier Brunna, Schmitz Julian
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2017 Jul;26(7):749-757. doi: 10.1007/s00787-017-0942-x. Epub 2017 Jan 11.
Deficits in emotion regulation (ER) are an important factor in maintaining social anxiety disorder (SAD) in adults. As SAD and ER problems typically develop during childhood and adolescence, and are maintained dynamically within the parent-child dyad, research on families can help to reveal the role ER plays in the early development of SAD. The current study assessed self-reported habitual ER in dyads of children with SAD (n = 31), children with mixed anxiety disorders (MAD; n = 41) and healthy control children (HC; n = 36), and their parents. Results indicate a transdiagnostic quality of ER in that, children with SAD and children with MAD similarly reported less adaptive and more maladaptive ER strategies than HC children, whereas no group differences in parental ER strategies emerged. Furthermore, children's ER strategies aggressive action, withdrawal and self-devaluation and the parental ER strategy reappraisal were associated with social anxiety symptoms. These results suggest that there may be deficits in ER which generalize across childhood anxiety disorders. Our results are discussed in relation to current theories and their implications for treatment of childhood SAD.
情绪调节（ER）缺陷是成年人维持社交焦虑障碍（SAD）的一个重要因素。由于社交焦虑障碍和情绪调节问题通常在童年和青少年时期出现，并在亲子二元组中动态维持，对家庭的研究有助于揭示情绪调节在社交焦虑障碍早期发展中所起的作用。本研究评估了患有社交焦虑障碍的儿童（n = 31）、患有混合焦虑障碍（MAD；n = 41）的儿童和健康对照儿童（HC；n = 36）及其父母自我报告的习惯性情绪调节情况。结果表明情绪调节具有跨诊断特征，即患有社交焦虑障碍的儿童和患有混合焦虑障碍的儿童报告的适应性情绪调节策略比健康对照儿童少，适应不良的情绪调节策略比健康对照儿童多，而父母的情绪调节策略没有出现组间差异。此外，儿童的情绪调节策略攻击性行为、退缩和自我贬低以及父母的情绪调节策略重新评价与社交焦虑症状有关。这些结果表明，情绪调节可能存在缺陷，这种缺陷在儿童期焦虑障碍中具有普遍性。我们将结合当前理论及其对儿童社交焦虑障碍治疗的意义来讨论我们的结果。
