Investigating the relationship between distinctive patterns of emotion regulation, trauma exposure and psychopathology among refugees resettled in Australia: a latent class analysis

Figures & data

Table 1. Sociodemographic characteristics of refugees settled in Australia.

Variable	M or n	SD or %
Male gender	62	66.7%
Age, years	34.51	09.98
Country of Birth
Iran	50	53.8
Sri Lanka	11	11.8
Afghanistan	10	10.8
Iraq	07	07.5
Bangladesh	06	06.5
Others	09	09.6
Ethnicity
Persian	033	35.5
Tamil	010	10.8
Farsi	007	07.5
Hazara	006	06.5
Iraqi	006	06.5
Kurdish	006	06.5
Others	025	027.6
Years in Australia	002.56	03.55
Visa Status
Secure	015	16.1
Insecure	076	81.7
Missing	002	02.2

Table 2. Exposure to potentially traumatic events.

Trauma type	N	%
Serious injury	73	78.5
Lack of food or water	71	76.3
Being close to death	71	76.3
Ill health without access to medical care	68	73.1
Imprisonment	60	64.5
Combat situation	59	63.4
Murder of stranger or strangers	55	59.1
Lack of shelter	54	58.0
Unnatural death of family or friend	53	57.0
Murder of family or friend	50	53.7
Forced separation from family members	48	51.6
Torture	40	43.0
Forced isolation from others	34	36.5
Brain washing	32	34.4
Lost or kidnapped	26	27.9
Rape or sexual abuse	15	16.1

Table 3. Goodness-of-fit indices for ER profile class solutions.

	AIC	BIC	SS-BIC	Entropy	LMR-LRT	VLMR-LRT
1 class	1125.434	1152.932	1118.215
2 class	1004.577	1062.072	989.483	0.943	0.0012	0.0011
3 class	944.596	1032.089	921.626	0.940	0.0841	0.0809
4 class	935.727	1053.218	904.882	0.972	0.0635	0.0661
5 class	936.176	1083.665	897.457	0.966	0.4308	0.4238

AIC = Akaike information criterion; BIC = Bayesian information criterion; SS-BIC = sample size-adjusted Bayesian information criterion; LMR-LRT = Lo-Mendell-Rubin likelihood ration test; VLMR-LRT = Vuong-Lo-Mendell-Rubin likelihood ration test.

Figure 1. Probabilities of item endorsement for each latent class.

Supp 1 to Supp 5 denotes the five items measuring trait suppression, from the WBSI. Reap 1 to Reap 6 denotes the six items measuring trait reappraisal, from the ERQ. The actual items are displayed in Table 4.

Table 4. Conditional probabilities for habitual suppression and reappraisal items from the three-class solution.

	High regulators Class (55.7%)	Adaptive regulators Class (23.6%)	Maladaptive regulators Class (20.6%)
There are some things I prefer not to think about.	0.92	0.50	0.85
There are things that I try not to think about.	1.00	0.11	0.81
Sometimes I really wish I could stop thinking.	0.92	0.34	0.87
I have thoughts that I try to avoid.	0.98	0.27	0.92
There are many thoughts that I have that I don’t tell anyone.	0.79	0.30	0.87
When I want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amusement), I change what I’m thinking about.	0.70	0.57	0.66
When I want to feel less negative emotion (such as sadness or anger), I change what I’m thinking about.	0.79	0.64	0.65
When I’m faced with a stressful situation, I make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm.	0.80	0.76	0.05
When I want to feel more positive emotion, I change the way I’m thinking about the situation	0.90	0.68	0.00
I control my emotions by changing the way I think about the situation I’m in.	0.96	0.76	0.00
When I want to feel less negative emotion, I change the way I’m thinking about the situation	0.98	0.75	0.00

Table 5. Associations between class membership, age, gender, trauma exposure, PTSD and ER difficulties.

	Est	SE	Odds Ratio	p-value	95% CI Low	95% CI High
Adaptive regulators vs High regulators
Age	−0.033	0.025	0.968	0.187	0.921	1.016
Gender	−0.250	0.626	0.779	0.689	0.228	2.656
Trauma	0.216	0.092	1.241	0.019	1.036	1.486
PTSD diagnosis	0.515	0.683	0.450	0.450	0.439	6.383
PTSD severity	0.042	0.023	1.043	0.071	0.997	1.091
Emotion regulation difficulties	0.099	0.090	1.104	0.267	0.926	1.317
Adaptive regulators vs Maladaptive regulators
Age	−0.022	0.037	0.978	0.545	0.910	1.052
Gender	1.018	0.714	2.768	0.154	0.683	11.217
Trauma	0.153	0.109	1.165	0.160	0.941	1.443
PTSD diagnosis	0.389	0.806	1.476	0.630	0.304	7.162
PTSD severity	0.075	0.030	1.078	0.012	1.016	1.143
Emotion regulation difficulties	0.201	0.100	1.223	0.043	1.005	1.487
High regulators vs Maladaptive regulators
Age	0.011	0.034	1.011	0.755	0.946	1.081
Gender	1.268	0.580	3.554	0.029	1.140	11.076
Trauma	−0.064	0.085	0.938	0.456	0.794	1.108
PTSD diagnosis	−0.127	0.614	0.881	0.837	0.264	2.934
PTSD severity	0.034	0.022	1.035	0.126	0.991	1.080
Emotion regulation difficulties	0.102	0.057	1.107	0.072	0.990	1.238

PTSD diagnosis measured whether a participant met full DSM-5 criteria for PTSD, as assessed by the PSSI. PTSD severity reflected the total number of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms each participant endorsed.

Table 6. Rates of age, gender, trauma exposure, PTSD and ER difficulties according to class.

M (SD) or n	High Regulators (n = 53)	Adaptive regulators (n = 19)	Maladaptive regulators (n = 18)
Age	33.77 (9.204)	36.79 (8.515)	34.67 (12.362)
Gender	39 males, 14 females	13 males, 6 females	8 males, 10 females
Trauma	9.38 (3.033)	7.00 (4.069)	8.72 (3.627)
PTSD diagnosis	16 met diagnosis	2 met diagnosis	7 met diagnosis
PTSD severity	22.64 (13.478)	15.42 (14.108)	29.17 (15.474)
Emotion regulation difficulties	14.19 (4.336)	12.60 (4.083)	16.37 (4.941)

PTSD diagnosis measured whether a participant met full DSM-5 criteria for PTSD, as assessed by the PSSI. PTSD severity reflected the total number of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms that a participant endorsed.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.