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Emotion-focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for externalizing disorders in children and adolescents : an attempt to resolve emotion regulation difficulties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

N. Arfaoui ,
M. Hajri ,
Z. Abbes ,
S. Halayem  and
A. Bouden
N. Arfaoui*
Affiliation:
Razi Hospital, Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, Manouba, Tunisia
M. Hajri
Affiliation:
Razi Hospital, Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, Manouba, Tunisia
Z. Abbes
Affiliation:
Razi Hospital, Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, Manouba, Tunisia
S. Halayem
Affiliation:
Razi Hospital, Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, manouba, Tunisia
A. Bouden
Affiliation:
Razi hospital, Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, manouba, Tunisia
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Deficient emotion regulation is a common and impairing area of difficulty among children and adolescents with externalizing disorders. Emotion focused cognitive behavioral therapy ECBT is a form of CBT that is suggested to be employed to improve dysregulation of anxiety and other kind of emotions in anxious youth.

Objectives

Examine the efficacy of an Emotion-focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (ECBT) inspired program on emotional regulation difficulties and behavioral problems in children and adolescents with externalizing disorders

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional comparative experimental study. Subjects were 50 patients exhibiting behavioral disorders aged 9 to 18 years , with a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD).Participants were assigned to ECBT and control groups. ECBT group contributed in 12-h weekly sessions within ECBT-inspired program. The control group received standard care. To assess emotion-related competencies, children were administered the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ-CA) and the alexithymia questionnaire for children(AQC). Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist(CBCL) to measure youth externalizing problems. Tests were administered in pre- and post-test to all subjects. Both groups were matched for age, sex and educationnal level. Comparison of pre- and post-test results was performed using the Student’s t-test.

Results

ECBT demonstrated a significant difference in the reduction of behavioral problems. ECBT effectively increased adaptive emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal) in the post-test. ECBT also reduced alexithymia scores, particularly difficulty identifying feelings, and externally oriented thinking.

Conclusions

ECBT demonstrated promising initial effectiveness in addressing emotion regulation deficits of children with externalizing behaviors

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Keywords

externalizing behaviorsChildrenemotion regulation
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 65 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 30th European Congress of Psychiatry , June 2022 , pp. S442
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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