Emotion Regulation, Parenting, and Psychopathology: A Systematic Review

Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2023 Sep 13. doi: 10.1007/s10567-023-00452-5. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe presence of a parental mental disorder can lead to adverse outcomes for children. Difficulties in emotion regulation are observed across a range of mental health problems and may play a crucial role in this context. Following PRISMA guidelines, we systematically searched Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, and Web of Science for studies examining the association between emotion regulation in parents with psychopathology at a clinical or subclinical level and their parenting. The protocol was registered with the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews (CRD42021224954; January 2021). A total of 23 studies were included in the qualitative synthesis. Emotion regulation was predominantly assessed using self-report on the general ability (e.g., Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale). The assessment of parenting encompassed a broad range of aspects and operationalizations. Across psychopathology in parents, several aspects of difficulties in emotion regulation were associated with unfavorable emotion socialization, more negative parenting, and partially with less positive parenting. Slightly different effects were observed for posttraumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorders. For parents with depressive disorders, specific emotion regulation strategies (suppression, reappraisal) seem to buffer against negative parenting. Since the majority of studies ref...
Source: Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Source Type: research