Excitability and irritability in preschoolers predicts later psychopathology: The importance of positive and negative emotion dysregulation.

ABSTRACT: Emotion dysregulation is a risk factor for the development of a variety of psychopathologic outcomes. In children, irritability, or dysregulated negative affect, has been the primary focus, as it predicts later negative outcomes even in very young children. However, dysregulation of positive emotion is increasingly recognized as a contributor to psychopathology. Here we used an exploratory factor analysis and defined four factors of emotion dysregulation: irritability, excitability, sadness, and anhedonia, in the preschool-age psychiatric assessment collected in a sample of 302 children ages 3-5 years enriched for early onset depression. The irritability and excitability factor scores defined in preschoolers predicted later diagnosis of mood and externalizing disorders when controlling for

SUBMITTER: Vogel AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7059859 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature