Emotional regulation and clinical symptomatology when experiencing the illness of a close person

Abstract

Introduction: In human life, emotions have a central role the adaptive functioning and in healthy psychological development [1]. The emotional regulation difficulty is deeply related to the development of several psychological disorders, increasing the vulnerability of those who experience negative situations [2]. The main objective of the current study was to analyze the association between emotional regulation and clinical symptomatology in individuals who witnessed the illness of a close person.

Materials and methods: The sample is composed by 318 Portuguese adults. Concerning the experience of witnessing the illness of a close person 141 (44.3%) participants responded positively. The majority of the participants were female (n = 266, 83.6%), with ages between 18 and 89 years old (M = 29.69, SD = 13.229). The participants responded online to the consent term, the sociodemographic questionnaire, the Scale of the Difficulties of Emotional Regulation [2], the Brief Inventory of Symotoms [3], Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Ckecklist-5 [4]. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.

Results: The following groups were compared to find statistically significant differences (G1: participants who witnessed the illness of a close person, G2: participants who did not witness that event). There were not statistically significant differences betewen the groups in emotional regulation [F (1, 316) = .061, p= .806] and in clinical symptomatology and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptons [F (1, 316) = .054, p= .816]. Analysing the relation between emotional regulation, clinical symptomatology and PTSD symptoms, there were statistical significant correlations in all variables. Regarding the correlation between emotional regulation and PTSD symptoms, there were a significant and negative association (r = .57 ; p < .001). Concerning the correlation between emotional regulation and all of the subscales in clinical symptomatology, there were significant and negative associations (e.g. r = .41 p < .001 in the somatization subscale). Finally, there were significant and positive associations bettwen PTSD symptoms and all of clinical symptomatology subscales (e.g. r = .62, p< .001 in the somatization subscale).

Discussion and conclusions: We verified that individuals with more difficulties of emotional resolution had more clinical symptoms and symptoms of PTSD, which is corroborated by the literature [2].