RESUMEN
School refusal behaviors in adolescents have deleterious immediate and long-term consequences and are associated with mental ill-health such as anxiety and depression. Understanding factors that place youth at higher risk of school refusal behavior may assist in developing effective management approaches. We investigated parental and adolescent factors that may be associated with school refusal behaviors by specifically focusing on the role of parental and adolescent emotion dysregulation, their anxiety and depression, and parental rearing style. First, we hypothesized that adolescents with school refusal behaviors, as well as their parents, will report higher levels of emotion dysregulation, anxiety, and depression compared to their counterparts without school refusal behaviors. Furthermore, we hypothesized that multivariate models testing the role of parental and child factors concurrently will show that parental (emotion dysregulation, anxiety and depression, and rearing styles) and adolescent (emotion dysregulation, anxiety, and depression) factors are associated with school refusal behaviors. One hundred and six adolescents aged 12 to 18 years and their parents completed an online questionnaire measuring both parental and adolescent emotion dysregulation, anxiety, depression, parental rearing styles, and adolescents' school refusal behaviors. Adolescents with school refusal behaviors reported greater anxiety and depression, with their parents showing greater emotion dysregulation. Multivariate analyses showed that parental emotion dysregulation and adolescent age were associated with school refusal behaviors independently. Future management for school refusal behaviors should consider age-tailored approaches by incorporating training for parental emotion regulation skills.
RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Emotional reactivity predicts poor health and psychopathology. Despite its theoretical importance, little research has tested whether coping predicts emotional reactivity to stressors. We analyse three studies to test this hypothesis for negative (NA) and positive affect (PA) reactivity to daily stressors. METHODS: 422 Participants (72.5 % females, Mage = 22.79 ± 5.36) came from three longitudinal, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies across 7-15 days (ACES N = 190; DESTRESS N = 134; SHS N = 98). Coping was measured at baseline. NA, PA, and daily stressors were assessed via EMA. Mixed effects linear models tested whether coping predicted NA and PA reactivity, defined as their slope on within- and between-person daily stressors. RESULTS: Behavioural disengagement and mental disengagement coping predicted greater within-person NA reactivity across all studies (all p < .01, all f2 = 0.01). Denial coping predicted greater within-person NA reactivity in ACES and DESTRESS (both p < .01, f2 from 0.02-0.03) and between-person in ACES and SHS (both p < .01, f2 from 0.02 to 0.03). For approach-oriented coping, only active planning coping predicted lower within-person NA reactivity and only in DESTRESS (p < .01, f2 = 0.02). Coping did not predict PA reactivity (all p > .05). LIMITATIONS: Our findings cannot be generalised to children or older adults. Emotional reactivity to daily stressors may differ from severe or traumatic stressors. Although data were longitudinal, the observational design precludes establishing causality. CONCLUSIONS: Avoidance-oriented coping strategies predicted greater NA reactivity to daily stressors with small effect sizes. Few and inconsistent results emerged for approach-oriented coping and PA reactivity. Clinically, our results suggest that reducing reliance on avoidance-oriented coping may reduce NA reactivity to daily stressors.