An investigation on the effect of emotional management problems on children's anxiety

Abstract

Today’s research on emotion regulation reveals its importance on many mental and physical heath related issues. One of the problems to deregulation of emotions is anxiety disorders subject. The aim of this research is to identify the relationship between emotional management problems including emotional inhibition, emotional deregulation and emotional coping on children’s anxiety symptoms, where it includes separation anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, school phobia and generalized anxiety symptoms. The sample was consisted of 307 primary students including boy and girl aged between 9-13 years old in city of Isfahan selected by simple random sampling. The instruments were Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED), child Sadness Management Scale (CSMS) and child Anger Management Scale (CAMS). The results shows that problems of children in management of anger and sadness consist of anger and sadness inhibition; anger and sadness deregulation predicts anxiety symptoms in children (p<0.0001). However, emotional coping could not predict children's anxiety symptoms, significantly. In addition, deregulation and inhibition of sadness and anger predicts anxiety in children.

Keywords

• Anxiety symptoms
• Emotion inhibition
• Emotional coping
• Emotional deregulation
• Children