Developmental differences in the linkages between anxiety control beliefs and posttraumatic stress in youth

Emotion Controllability Beliefs and Young People's Anxiety and Depression Symptoms: A Systematic Review

Emotion regulation is a powerful predictor of youth mental health and a crucial ingredient of interventions. A growing body of evidence indicates that the beliefs individuals hold about the extent to which emotions are controllable (emotion controllability beliefs) influence both the degree and the ways in which they regulate emotions. A systematic review was conducted that investigated the associations between emotion controllability beliefs and youth anxiety and depression symptoms. The search identified 21 peer-reviewed publications that met the inclusion criteria. Believing that emotions are relatively controllable was associated with fewer anxiety and depression symptoms, in part because these beliefs were associated with more frequent use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies. These findings support theoretical models linking emotion controllability beliefs with anxiety and depression symptoms via emotion regulation strategies that target emotional experience, like reappraisal. Taken together, the review findings demonstrate that emotion controllability beliefs matter for youth mental health. Understanding emotion controllability beliefs is of prime importance for basic science and practice, as it will advance understanding of mental health and provide additional targets for managing symptoms of anxiety and depression in young people.

Coping Strategies and Psychological Maladjustment/Adjustment: A Meta-Analytic Approach with Children and Adolescents Exposed to Natural Disasters

Background

Following disasters, children and adolescents can use coping strategies to feel better. A growing body of studies investigated the relation between them and maladjustment/adjustment, i.e., negative symptomatology/positive indicators of development. Yet, these constructs are studied separately.

Objective

We conducted two meta-analyses to examine the mean correlation between disaster-related coping strategies and indicators of maladjustment/adjustment following natural disasters in children and adolescents, considering the role of some moderators.

Methods

We used PsycINFO, PubMed, Eric, and Scopus databases to identify articles on natural disasters (filters: participants ≤ 18 years at the disaster, peer-review, English language). Inclusion required investigating the relation between at least one coping strategy and at least one indicator of maladjustment (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression) and/or adjustment (e.g., self-efficacy, emotion understanding), for a total of 26 studies (k = 64, n = 9692, for maladjustment; k = 37, n = 3504, for adjustment).

Results

There were global positive significant correlations between coping strategies and negative symptomatology (r _pooled  = .23) for maladjustment, and positive indicators (r _pooled  = .17) for adjustment. Negative symptomatology positively correlated with escape (r = .19), social isolation (r = .15), submission (r = .64), and opposition (r = .16); positive indicators positively correlated with problem solving (r = .31), social support (r = .22), and submission (r = .30). We found a moderating role of age, disaster type, and continent for maladjustment.

Conclusions

The study presented an analysis of the coping strategies that can be effective for children and adolescents dealing with natural disasters.

Anxiety and Depression in Northern Plains American Indian Youth: Evidence for Resilience and Risk

Developing research collaborations with Indigenous communities to understand the expression and experience of anxiety and depression in American Indian (AI) youth and identifying protective and risk factors may be an important first step toward addressing AI health inequities. We used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to investigate anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms among AI youth living on a Northern Plains reservation. Moreover, we examined whether symptoms were related to two potential protective and risk factors, anxiety control beliefs and rumination. Our tribal research team collected multi-reporter survey data from 71 AI 3rd-6th graders (8-13-years-old; 62.3% female) attending a tribal school, their caregivers, and teachers. Results pointed toward resilience in this sample with 7.3% and 8.7% of AI youth reporting clinical levels of anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms, respectively, and on average experiencing symptoms "Sometimes." There were moderate correlations between youth- and teacher-reported anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms, but no correlation with caregivers. Anxiety control beliefs were lower in older compared to younger AI youth and negatively related to youth-reported anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms, while rumination was positively related to youth-reported anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms and teacher-reported anxiety disorder symptoms. Age moderated relations between anxiety control beliefs and both youth-reported anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms with only significant relations found for older youth. Our findings are consistent with research showing resilience to internalizing problems in AI youth living on a reservation, but replication of their relations to anxiety control beliefs and rumination in other Indigenous peoples is warranted.

Changes in Anxiety Control Beliefs Following a Brief CBT Treatment and Their Association With Anxiety Symptom Reduction

Anxiety control beliefs (i.e., beliefs regarding one's ability to cope with external, fear-inducing threats and internal reactions to those perceived threats) have been found to negatively predict anxiety symptoms in children and adults and to be modifiable by cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders. The current study examines whether changes in anxiety control beliefs were seen following a brief, intensive treatment for specific phobias, and whether those changes were associated with improvements in the targeted phobia and comorbid anxiety disorder symptoms. Participants were 135 children and adolescents (M age = 9.01 years, 49% male) who received one-session treatment (OST) with or without parental involvement for their primary specific phobia. Results indicated that self-reported anxiety control beliefs significantly increased following treatment and that these increases significantly predicted reductions in specific phobia severity and symptoms of comorbid anxiety disorders 6 months and 1 year following treatment. Findings illustrate that involvement in a single 3-hour OST was associated with changes in anxiety control beliefs and demonstrate the potential importance of targeting control beliefs in pediatric anxiety treatment.