Poster #60 - Self-Reported and Parent Reported Emotion Regulation in Children Predicts Outcomes in the Resilience Builder Program®

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Background: Resilience and emotion regulation in children are essential to intrapersonal and interpersonal developmental outcomes (Sandell et al., 2012). Resilience is successful adaptation to life-stressors; emotional regulation is the ability to modulate one’s feelings (Alvord, Rich, & Berghorst, 2016). The Resilience Builder Program® (RBP), a manualized group CBT intervention for children with psychosocial deficits, often secondary to ADHD and/or anxiety (RBP; Alvord, Zucker, & Grados, 2011), has been shown to improve resilience (Alvord et al., 2014; Goolsby et al., 2017). While social emotional learning programs (SEL) show some efficacy in improving emotion regulation (Durowitz et al., 2017), the efficacy of such treatments in clinical service settings remains unknown. This study aimed to determine if pre-therapy emotion regulation predicted self- and parent-reported mental health of children following a SEL-like resilience-based group therapy.

Methods: Participants were 151 children enrolled in the RBP (M age = 10.24 years, SD = 1.21; 74.00% male; 78.10% white). The How I Feel (HIF) measure (Walden, Harris, & Catron, 2003) provided self-report of positive emotion, negative emotion, and emotional control. The Behavioral Assessment System of Children, 2nd Edition (BASC-2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004) provided self-report and parent report of anxiety, depression, and internalizing problems. Linear sequential regressions examined the relationship between pre-therapy HIF emotion regulation and post-therapy BASC-2 child affective functioning controlling for pre-therapy affective functioning.

Results: Greater pre-therapy HIF negative emotions significantly predicted variance in post-therapy child-reported BASC internalizing problem scores over and above pre-therapy child-reported BASC internalizing problem scores, such that higher pre-therapy HIF negative emotions scores resulted in higher post-therapy BASC internalizing problems, ∆R2 = .03, F(1, 114) = 7.23, p = .008. In addition to child-reported affective functioning, greater pre-therapy negative emotions significantly predicted variance in post-therapy parent reported BASC anxiety over and above pre-therapy parent reported BASC anxiety scores, such that higher pre-therapy HIF negative emotion scores resulted in higher post-therapy BASC anxiety, ∆R2 = .02, F(1, 120) = 6.13, p = .015. Similarly, greater pre-therapy negative emotions significantly predicted variance in post-therapy parent reported BASC depression over and above pre-therapy parent reported BASC depression, such that higher pre-therapy HIF negative emotion scores resulted in higher post-therapy BASC depression, ∆R2 = .02, F(1, 123) = 6.04, p = .015.


Discussion: Emotion regulation, particularly negative emotions, significantly predicted the variance in self-reported and parent reported affective functioning after therapy, specifically greater pre-therapy negative emotions predicted greater levels of internalizing problems, anxiety, and depression after therapy, controlling for pre-therapy levels of internalizing problems, anxiety, and depression. Greater negative emotions before therapy were related to higher levels of anxiety, depression, and internalizing problems after resilience based therapy. Results suggest that there is a strong relationship between the development of emotion regulation and internalizing problems such as anxiety, depression, and somatization. These results clarify the importance of focusing on baseline emotion regulation when developing and revising SEL-like group therapy programs.

Authors

• Kristyn Nicole Donohue, Catholic University of America
  Presenting Author

• Mary K. Alvord, Alvord, Baker & Associates, LLC
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brendan Rich, The Catholic University of America
  Non-Presenting Author