Life events, such as the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, elicit increases in psychological stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression. In turn, these outcomes have negative implications for mental health. Emotion regulation strategies and prior adversity may moderate the degree to which life events affect outcomes that are linked to mental health. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate whether childhood adversity and emotion regulation strategy use interactively informed changes in outcomes linked to mental health following the onset of the pandemic in American Indian (AI) adults. AI adults (N = 210) reported levels of childhood adversity, emotion regulation strategy use, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and psychological stress 1 month prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. One month following the declaration of the pandemic, they reported on their stress, symptoms of anxiety and depression once again. The interaction between expressive suppression and childhood adversity predicted changes in psychological stress and symptoms of depression (B = .26, t(198) = 4.43 p < .001, R2 change = .06) and (B = .23 t(199) = 4.14, p < .001, R2 change = .05) respectively. The findings indicate that expressive suppression may be a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy for AI adults who experienced high levels of childhood adversity. This work represents a first step in understanding the role of emotion regulation strategy use in predicting mental health-relevant outcomes in the context of a life event, in a community that is disproportionately affected by chronic mental health conditions.
Theoretical models of adolescent depression postulate that one possible individual vulnerability factor for the development of depressive symptoms is autonomic dysregulation. However, there is limited and mixed support for these models among ethnically diverse and higher risk stress‐exposed youth. Therefore, this study investigated the relations between both tonic and phasic indices of parasympathetic autonomic functioning (i.e., resting high‐frequency heart rate variability [HF‐HRV] and root mean square of successive differences [RMSSD]; HF‐HRV and RMSSD reactivity to a mental arithmetic stressor) and depressive symptoms among 80 severely stress‐exposed youth (51% female; 11–17 years of age) from diverse backgrounds (61.3% ethnic minority; caregiver‐reported median family income = $20,000–$49,999 per year). Results demonstrated that lower resting HF‐HRV and RMSSD, but not HF‐HRV and RMSSD reactivity, was associated with greater youth depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that lower resting parasympathetic autonomic functioning may be a potential vulnerability factor of depressive symptoms among stress‐exposed youth, instead of specific emotional responses to stressors. These findings will need to be replicated in larger samples of stress‐exposed youth and youth at higher risk for or exhibiting clinical levels of depressive symptoms to better elucidate relations with autonomic functioning and depressive symptoms among adolescents.
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