The Structural model of difficulty in emotion regulation and symptoms of conduct disorder (CD) with mediation emotional and cognitive empathy in male adolescents

The aim of the present study was to investigate the structural pattern of difficulty in emotional regulation with conduct disorder based on mediating emotional and cognitive empathy in male adolescents. The research method was descriptive-correlation based on structural equation modeling. The statistical population included all the male students of the first secondary school in Kermanshah city in 2021-2022, 234 students who obtained the highest scores in the pediatric symptoms questionnaire and had the most symptoms of conduct disorder, were selected as a sample group based on the purposive sampling method. the questionnaires were the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (DERS, Gratz and Roemer, 2004) and the Empathy Benefit Scale (EQ, Baron-Cohen, 2003). For analyzing data we used the Pearson correlation test and analysis of structural. The results of data analysis showed that the model has a good fit and there is a significant correlation & difficulty in regulating emotion and emotional & cognitive empathy have a direct and significant effect on the behavioral disorder(P<0.01). Also, difficulty in regulating emotion through the mediation of emotional and cognitive empathy has an indirect and significant effect on students' behavior disorder (P<0.01). Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the development of self-regulation of emotion can make it possible to achieve empathy in a person and act as an effective factor in reducing the symptoms of conduct disorder and increasing prosocial behavior in adolescents.