The Effect of Teaching Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategy on the Tendency to Addiction and Impulsivity in the Children of Addicts in Zanjan: A Randomized Educational Trial Study

Impulsive and addictive behaviors, which are considered as high-risk behaviors, include a wide range of immature and hedonistic behaviors, and are generally associated with high levels of risk. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of cognitive emotion regulation training on impulsivity and addiction tendency in children of addicts in Zanjan.

This study was a randomized educational trial with pretest-posttest. Among the teenagers in Zanjan whose fathers were addicted to one of the types of drugs, 24 were selected and randomly (lottery) replaced in the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received cognitive emotion regulation training in 10 sessions. The Weed et al. Addiction Scale and the Barrett et al. Impulsivity Scale were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance and univariate analysis of covariance.

The results showed that cognitive emotion regulation training had a significant effect on the overall score of addiction tendency and dimensions of individual tendency to addiction, and environmental tendency to addiction (p<0.001), but had no significant effect on social tendency to addiction (p>0.05).  Also, emotion regulation training had a significant effect on impulsivity and its dimensions including unplannedness, motor impulsivity, and cognitive impulsivity (p<0.001).

Based on the findings of the present study, the use of cognitive emotion regulation training is suggested as an effective psychological intervention to improve self-control and impulsivity, and reduce the tendency to addiction in adolescents.