Structural Relations of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies with Symptoms of Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity, conduct, and Oppositional Defiant Disorders among Primary School Children

The current study scrutinizes the structural relations between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and attention deficit-hyperactivity, conduct and oppositional defiant disorders among primary school children. The sample of the study included of 533 elementary school students (aged 9-11) of Tabriz city, whom were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling method. Children and their parents participated in the study by filling out Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies Questionnaire (CERQ-K-P) and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), respectively. Data were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results showed significant relationships between some (not all) of emotion regulation strategies with attention deficit-hyperactivity, conduct, and oppositional defiant disorders. Some of strategies were related with one or two of these problems, however “blaming others” and “positive reappraisal” were common strategies for the cognitive regulation of emotion in all three disorders. Significant negative and positive strategies of cognitive emotion regulation about externalizing disorders, as well as pathological and therapeutic implications of these findings, and the role of these strategies in explaining attention deficit-hyperactivity, conduct, and oppositional defiant disorders have been discussed in the article.