Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Massenbergstrasse 9-13, 44787 Bochum, Germany.
Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Massenbergstrasse 9-13, 44787 Bochum, Germany.
J Affect Disord. 2018 Oct 1;238:392-398. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2018.05.035. Epub 2018 Jun 2.
Emotion regulation plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of psychological disorders. Less is known about the association of affective styles and psychopathology. The 20-item "Affective Style Questionnaire" (ASQ) has been validated in nonclinical samples. The American and German validation studies resulted in a three-factor structure (concealing, adjusting, and tolerating). The present study aimed to investigate three aspects: (1) the validation of the ASQ within a clinical sample, (2) the examination of possible differences in affective styles between patients suffering from affective versus anxiety disorders, and (3) the association of affective styles and anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms.
Overall 917 patients receiving cognitive-behavioral therapy at an outpatient clinic participated in this study, 550 participants were female. All data were collected before the beginning of treatment.
Confirmatory factor analyses revealed the same three-factor structure found in the previous Western samples (CFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.06): Concealing (α = 0.81), adjusting (α = 0.71), and tolerating (α = 0.70). Significantly lower scores in the ASQ subscale adjusting were found in patients suffering from affective disorders than patients suffering from anxiety disorders. The results of the regression analyses showed that the ASQ adjusting and concealing behavior seem to play a more important role than the ERQ reappraisal and suppression for depression, anxiety, and stress among clinical populations.
A number of limitations must be taken into consideration while evaluating the present study. First and foremost, the clinical data were based on primary diagnoses. We did not ascertain comorbid diagnoses. This distinction may be important, since affective and anxiety disorders are often linked to each other. In addition, we only used data collected before the beginning of psychotherapeutic treatment and were therefore not able to analyze changes in affective styles during and after intervention. Furthermore, all data were based on self-reported information of patients. We did not implement either a therapeutic rating of affective styles or physiological measures, for instance arousal, which could have shown whether the used strategies successfully reduce negative emotions. Future research should address this question. Another limitation is the fact that we concentrated on the main categories of mental disorders and, therefore, did not subdivide patients with affective and anxiety disorders in terms of their concrete diagnoses. This is of special importance, because there might also be differences in affective styles within the main categories.
情绪调节在心理障碍的发展和维持中起着关键作用。人们对情感风格与精神病理学之间的关系知之甚少。20 项“情感风格问卷”（ASQ）已在非临床样本中得到验证。美国和德国的验证研究得出了三因素结构（掩饰、调整和容忍）。本研究旨在探讨三个方面：（1）在临床样本中验证 ASQ；（2）检查患有情感障碍和焦虑障碍的患者之间情感风格的可能差异；（3）情感风格与焦虑、抑郁和压力症状的关联。
共有 917 名在门诊接受认知行为治疗的患者参与了这项研究，其中 550 名参与者为女性。所有数据均在治疗开始前收集。
验证性因素分析显示，与之前的西方样本相同，存在三因素结构（CFI=0.90，RMSEA=0.06）：掩饰（α=0.81）、调整（α=0.71）和容忍（α=0.70）。患有情感障碍的患者在 ASQ 调整分量表上的得分明显低于患有焦虑障碍的患者。回归分析的结果表明，在临床人群中，ASQ 调整和掩饰行为似乎比 ERQ 重评和抑制对抑郁、焦虑和压力更重要。
在评估本研究时，必须考虑到许多局限性。首先，临床数据基于主要诊断。我们没有确定合并诊断。这种区别可能很重要，因为情感障碍和焦虑障碍通常相互关联。此外，我们只使用了心理治疗开始前收集的数据，因此无法分析干预期间和之后情感风格的变化。此外，所有数据均基于患者的自我报告信息。我们没有实施情感风格的治疗评估或生理测量，例如唤醒，这可以表明所使用的策略是否成功地降低了负面情绪。未来的研究应该解决这个问题。另一个限制是我们专注于精神障碍的主要类别，因此没有根据情感和焦虑障碍患者的具体诊断对其进行细分。这一点尤为重要，因为在主要类别中也可能存在情感风格的差异。
