Emotional awareness: a transdiagnostic factor in child and adolescent psychopathology?

Emotional awareness is consistently conceptualized as the first step in the process of emotion regulation and has been associated with a range of child and adolescent disorders. However, because most of this research has been cross-sectional, it has remained unclear whether low emotional awareness is a risk factor or corollary of youth psychopathology. Furthermore, most studies of emotional-awareness have been disorder-specific, and it remains unclear whether low emotional awareness represents a transdiagnostic factor for a range of poor mental health outcomes. The current study used longitudinal data to examine the predictive role of emotional awareness in the development of depressive and anxiety symptoms over the course of one year. Participants were 204 youth, ages 7 to 16, who completed assessments every 3 months for a year. Results from hierarchical mixed effects modeling indicated that poor emotional awareness predicted both depressive and anxiety symptoms for up to one year follow-up, after controlling for child age, gender, baseline symptomatology and stress. These findings suggest that emotional awareness may constitute a transdiagnostic factor in the development and/or maintenance of symptoms of depression and anxiety, which has important implications for youth treatment and prevention programs.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Amy Kranzle