Emotion dysregulation and posttraumatic stress disorder: a test of the incremental role of difficulties regulating positive emotions

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Literature provides support for the role of emotion dysregulation in the development and course of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among women victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). However, a dearth of studies have examined the contribution of emotion dysregulation stemming from positive emotions to PTSD. Extending research, the current study examined (1) the bivariate association of difficulties regulating positive emotions to PTSD symptom severity, and (2) the incremental role of difficulties regulating positive emotions in PTSD symptom severity beyond difficulties regulating negative emotions.

Design: Participants were 210 women victims of IPV involved in the criminal justice system because of their partners’ arrest (M age = 36.14, 48.6% African American).

Methods: Participants completed empirically-supported self-report measures assessing difficulties regulating positive and negative emotions and PTSD symptom severity.

Results: Difficulties regulating positive and negative emotions (overall and across each of the specific dimensions) were significantly positively associated with PTSD symptom severity. Moreover, difficulties regulating positive emotions demonstrated an incremental relation to PTSD symptom severity beyond the variance accounted for by difficulties regulating negative emotions.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest the potential utility of targeting difficulties regulating positive emotions in interventions for PTSD among women victims of IPV.

KEYWORDS:

• Difficulties regulating positive emotions
• difficulties regulating negative emotions
• posttraumatic stress disorder severity
• intimate partner violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Results remained the same in strength and direction when outliers were included in the analyses.

2 In general, the pattern of findings remains the same when depression severity is included as a covariate alongside stress severity with the exception of DERS-P Goals, which was no longer significant after correction (B = 1.09, t = 2.01, p = .046).

3 When all three DERS-P scales were entered into the same model, none were found to uniquely predict PTSD symptom severity.

4 Analyses were also conducted with depression and stress symptom severity as separate outcomes. Findings for depression and stress symptom severity remained the same as those for PTSD severity with a few exceptions: DERS-P Impulse was not a significant predictor of depression symptom severity controlling for DERS Impulse; DERS-P Total was not a significant predictor of stress symptom severity controlling for DERS Total; and DERS-P Accept was a significant predictor of stress symptom severity controlling for DERS Accept.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by Award No. 2012-IJ-CX-0045 by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice awarded to Dr. Sullivan/Yale University. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice. Work on this paper by the first author (NHW) was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse [grant number K23DA039327 and L30DA038349].