a Department of Psychology , University of Warsaw , Warsaw , Poland.
b Department of Psychology , University of Houston , Houston , TX , USA.
Anxiety Stress Coping. 2018 Jul;31(4):447-458. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2018.1475868. Epub 2018 May 17.
A better understanding of the relationships between empathy and internalizing disorders is needed to plan therapeutic interventions for children and adolescents. Several studies have revealed positive relations of internalizing symptoms to personal distress and affective empathy. However, there is a lack of studies that take into account the multidimensional nature of anxiety in its relation to empathy.
Structural equation modeling was used to test the moderated mediation model of the relations between empathy, depression and anxiety dimensions and the moderating role of gender on these associations in inpatient adolescents.
A total of 403 inpatient adolescents aged 12-17 years completed the Basic Empathy Scale, the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II.
Affective empathy was positively related to all the anxiety dimensions - most strongly to separation/panic and humiliation/rejection anxiety, whereas cognitive empathy was negatively related to social and separation/panic anxiety. Relations between affective and cognitive empathy and anxiety were partly mediated by depressive symptoms. No evidence of a moderating role of gender has been found.
Our results suggest that processes associated with empathy may play a role in the development or maintenance of anxiety symptoms.
为了为儿童和青少年制定治疗干预措施，需要更好地了解同理心与内化障碍之间的关系。几项研究表明，内化症状与个人痛苦和情感同理心之间存在正相关关系。然而，在考虑到焦虑的多维性质与其同理心的关系时，缺乏研究。
结构方程模型用于测试同理心、抑郁和焦虑维度之间的关系的中介调节模型，以及性别对这些关联的调节作用在住院青少年中的作用。
共有 403 名 12-17 岁的住院青少年完成了基本同理心量表、多维儿童焦虑量表和贝克抑郁量表第二版。
情感同理心与所有焦虑维度呈正相关-与分离/惊恐和羞辱/拒绝焦虑的相关性最强，而认知同理心与社交和分离/惊恐焦虑呈负相关。情感同理心和认知同理心与焦虑之间的关系部分通过抑郁症状介导。没有发现性别调节作用的证据。
我们的研究结果表明，与同理心相关的过程可能在焦虑症状的发展或维持中发挥作用。
