Miguel Hernández University, Alicante, Spain.
Department of Health Psychology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad s/n, 03202, Elche, Alicante, Spain.
Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2021 Feb;52(1):63-76. doi: 10.1007/s10578-020-00988-5.
Childhood anxiety problems have a great impact on the daily functioning of children and their families. The first objective of this study was to compare whether the use of cognitive-emotional regulation strategies differs in children with and without anxious symptomatology. A second objective was to analyze the possible mediating role of regulation strategies in the relationship between the presence of anxious symptomatology and its subsequent interference in children's lives. In total, 315 children (53.7% boys) between 8 and 12 years old participated. Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon U-test was used to analyze differences in the use of cognitive-emotional regulation strategies between children with and without anxious symptomatology. In order to identify the cognitive-emotional regulation strategies which mediate the relation between anxiety and the consequent interference in children's lives, mediation analyses were carried out. As expected, children with anxious symptomatology used more maladaptive regulatory strategies than those without such symptomatology. Multiple mediation models in parallel showed that catastrophizing, rumination, and other-blame mediated the relationship between anxiety problems and their consequent interference. The identification of functional or dysfunctional patterns of cognitive-emotion regulation may favor the inclusion of new components in the evidence-based interventions currently available, in an attempt to increase rates of remission of anxiety.
儿童期焦虑问题对儿童及其家庭的日常功能有很大影响。本研究的首要目标是比较有无焦虑症状儿童在认知情绪调节策略的使用上是否存在差异。第二个目标是分析调节策略在焦虑症状的存在与其对儿童生活的后续干扰之间的关系中可能存在的中介作用。共有 315 名 8 至 12 岁的儿童（53.7%为男孩）参与了本研究。采用曼-惠特尼 U 检验来分析有无焦虑症状儿童在认知情绪调节策略使用上的差异。为了确定在焦虑与儿童生活后续干扰之间的关系中起中介作用的认知情绪调节策略，我们进行了中介分析。正如预期的那样，有焦虑症状的儿童比没有这种症状的儿童更多地使用适应性不良的调节策略。并行的多重中介模型表明，灾难化思维、反刍思维和归罪他人等认知情绪调节策略在焦虑问题及其后续干扰之间存在中介关系。识别认知情绪调节的功能或非功能模式可能有利于在现有的循证干预措施中纳入新的组成部分，以提高焦虑症的缓解率。
