Anxiety in Early Adolescents During COVID-19 PDF

ANXIETY IN EARLY ADOLESCENTS DURING THE COVID19 PANDEMIC - THE ROLE OF INTOLERANCE OF UNCERTAINTY AND COGNITIVE EMOTION REGULATION Tamara Martinac Dorčić, Ivanka Živčić-Bećirević, and Sanja Smojver-Ažić Introduction Method Anxiety: Adolescents are more vulnerable than adults because of cognitive...

ANXIETY IN EARLY ADOLESCENTS DURING THE COVID19 PANDEMIC - THE ROLE OF INTOLERANCE OF UNCERTAINTY AND COGNITIVE EMOTION REGULATION Tamara Martinac Dorčić, Ivanka Živčić-Bećirević, and Sanja Smojver-Ažić Introduction Method Anxiety: Adolescents are more vulnerable than adults because of cognitive and emotional immaturity and fewer coping strategies. Emotion regulation: Refers to a style of responding to threatening or stressful life events, as well as the way of regulating emotions triggered by stressors. Intolerance of uncertainty: An essential dimension and treatment target for emotional disorder. Refers to a negative orientation toward uncertainty and its consequences in unpredictable situations. Study motivation: Uncertainty is more pronounced because of the pandemic. The effect of intolerance of uncertainty is rarely analyzed. The nature of the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and some emotionalregulation strategies between these constructs in a sample of children and adolescents remains open. 234 (128 females and 106 males) aged 11 to 15 years agreed to participate in the study. Multi-questionnaire self-assessment study: Demographic data, Anxiety and Depression Scale, Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale, Cognitive Emotion Regulation, Adaptive Strategies, Covid-19 related stress. Goals and Hypothesis Study Goal: Examine the mediating role of intolerance of uncertainty and cognitive emotion-regulation strategies in the relationship between stress and anxiety symptoms during the pandemic. Hypothesis: Stress directly and indirectly affect anxiety symptoms through intolerance of uncertainty and cognitive emotionregulation strategies. Results Emotion regulation strategies: Adolescents were more likely to use adaptive cognitive emotionregulation strategies Adaptive and less adaptive emotion-regulation strategies were positively related. The use of maladaptive strategies is related to higher levels of anxiety symptoms. The use of adaptive strategies is related to lower levels of anxiety symptoms. Intolerance of uncertainty had a significant effect in explaining anxiety. COVID-19-related stress significantly affected anxiety Adolescents who experienced more stress reported more intolerance of uncertainty, used more adaptive strategies and have more anxiety symptoms. Discussion Limitation: Small sample (N = 234), only self-reports, Cronbach’s alpha ranges from .68 (Covid-19 related stress) to .95 (Anxiety and depression scale), Cognitive limitations (limited understanding of cognitive emotion regulation strategies misunderstandings in the questionnaire), Correlational study Implication: Implementation of prevention and intervention tools: The underlying mechanisms of intolerance of uncertainty and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies could be directly addressed. BUT: It is not enough to teach adaptive emotion regulation strategies. The use of adaptive strategies is not uniquely related to lower levels of anxiety symptoms. Also, maladaptive cognitive regulation strategies have to be untrained. →