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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV0074

Dikkat eksikliği hiperaktivite bozukluğu olan ve olmayan çocukların ebeveynlerinde duygu düzenleme: karşılaştırmalı bir çalışma (Emotion regulation in parents of children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a comparative study)

EMOTIONAL REGULATION AMONG PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH AND WITHOUT ADHD: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Emotion regulation difficulties are significantly greater in parents of children diagnosed with ADHD than in controls, and these difficulties are associated with the child's oppositional symptoms.

The aim was to compare emotion regulation difficulties in parents of children diagnosed with ADHD and parents of typically developing children. In this cross-sectional comparative study conducted at a tertiary child psychiatry clinic between April 2022 and September 2023, 50 parents of children aged 6–18 years diagnosed with ADHD according to DSM-5 criteria and 50 parents of typically developing children were recruited through convenience sampling; children with co-occurring psychiatric, neurological, sensory, or physical conditions were excluded. The assessment instruments were the Conners Parent Rating Scale (27 items, α = 0.90) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS, 36 items, α = 0.93). Analyses were performed in SPSS v21 using the Mann–Whitney U test, chi-square test, and Spearman's rho, with a significance threshold of p < 0.05. The total DERS score was 84.4 in the ADHD group and 73.4 in the control group (U = 915, p = 0.021). Significant differences were found on the subscales for nonacceptance of emotional responses (12.8 versus 10.3; p = 0.018) and difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior (14.3 versus 11.8; p = 0.004); reported scores were 13.5 versus 10.9 for impulse control difficulties, 17.3 versus 16.4 for lack of emotional awareness, 16.2 versus 14.1 for limited access to emotion regulation strategies, and 10.3 versus 9.9 for lack of emotional clarity. The CPRS oppositional score was positively associated with the total DERS score (ρ = 0.339; p = 0.016), nonacceptance (0.313), impulse control difficulties (0.343), and lack of emotional awareness (0.318) (all p < 0.05); the CPRS cognitive subscale was positively associated with lack of emotional clarity (ρ = 0.311; p = 0.028) and negatively associated with lack of emotional awareness (ρ = -0.417; p = 0.003). In conclusion, emotion regulation difficulties are significantly greater among caregivers of children diagnosed with ADHD and covary with the child's oppositional behavior. Highlighting bidirectional parent–child dynamics, the authors recommend routine screening of caregivers and emotion-focused and parent-training-based interventions. They identify the single-center convenience sample and the cross-sectional design, which precludes causal inference, as limitations.

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