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IMH Publication
Effects of Lifetime Trauma and PTSD and the Mediating Effects of Emotion Dysregulation
27 May 2020
Trauma can worsen psychosis symptoms through poor emotion regulation. This study shows that targeting emotion dysregulation may help reduce depressive and positive symptoms in patients with early psychosis.
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Global emotion dysregulation and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediate the effects of severe trauma on depressive and positive symptoms in early non-affective psychosis
Jianlin Liu, Matthew Sheng Mian Lim, Boon Tat Ng, Siow Ann Chong, Mythily Subramaniam, Rathi Mahendran
Background: Previous research has shown that childhood trauma contributes to the onset and maintenance of psychosis. However, few studies have accounted for the effects of lifetime trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and none have examined the mediating role of emotion dysregulation in symptom maintenance after severe trauma. The purpose of this study is to determine whether maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) and global emotion dysregulation mediate the effects of probable PTSD on depressive symptoms, and whether this pathway extends to influence positive symptoms in patients with early non-affective psychotic disorders.
Methods: A total of 150 outpatients with early non-affective psychosis were assessed for trauma exposure, DSM-5 PTSD symptoms, CERS, global emotion dysregulation, and current depressive and positive symptoms. Parallel and serial mediation analyses based on ordinary least squares regressions were used to test the hypothesized models.
Results: Mediation analyses controlling for gender, psychiatric comorbidities, antipsychotic medication dosage, duration of untreated psychosis (DUP), family history of mental illness, and cumulative trauma revealed that maladaptive CERS (rumination, catastrophic thinking, and self-blame) and global emotion dysregulation mediated the effects of probable PTSD on depressive symptoms (R2 = 41%), while maladaptive CERS, global emotion dysregulation, and depressive symptoms mediated the effects of probable PTSD on positive symptoms (R2 = 30%).
Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the indirect effects of maladaptive CERS and global emotion dysregulation on maintaining depressive and positive symptoms. Emotion dysregulation may be a potential transdiagnostic treatment target to alleviate depressive and positive symptoms in traumatized patients with early non-affective psychosis.