Adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation in child- and adolescent ADHD

TL;DR

Children and adolescents with ADHD use fewer adaptive emotion regulation strategies and more maladaptive ones, but these effects may be linked to depressive symptoms rather than ADHD itself.

Contribution

This study explores cognitive emotion regulation in ADHD, identifying associations with depressive symptoms and acceptance strategies.

Findings

ADHD was linked to lower self-rated and task-specific use of adaptive strategies.

ADHD was associated with higher self-rated use of maladaptive strategies.

Lower self-rated acceptance was robustly linked to ADHD.

Abstract

Children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often experience difficulties with emotion regulation. Specific use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies may contribute to these challenges, albeit research in this area remain limited.

Self-rated and task-specific use of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies was assessed in children and adolescents with ADHD and typically developing controls (N=176, 10–17 years, 55.1% girls; subsample for self-rated use: N=94, 13–17 years, 61.7% girls). Self-rated use was measured with the short version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Task-specific use was assessed by an experimental task involving viewing emotion-eliciting photos. Regression analyses were utilized to assess associations between ADHD and cognitive emotion regulation. Effects of sex and age were explored. Adjustments were made for co-occurring psychiatric symptoms.

ADHD was associated with lower self-rated (β =-0.21, p = .044) and task-specific (β =-0.09, p = .015) use of adaptive strategies, and greater use of self-rated maladaptive strategies (β =0.27, p = .010). No associations remained after adjusting for co-occurring psychiatric symptoms and multiple comparisons. Rather, depressive symptoms may contribute to the self-rated use of maladaptive strategies. Post-hoc analyses revealed that ADHD was robustly linked to less self-rated use of acceptance (β =-0.38, p = .005).

Lower use of self-rated acceptance may be characteristic for ADHD. Depressive symptoms may play a more vital role for maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation than ADHD. More studies are needed to explore the longitudinal relation between ADHD, emotion regulation and depression.

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