The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the widespread implementation of extraordinary physical distancing interventions (e.g., stay-at-home orders) to slow the spread of the virus. Although vital, these interventions may be socially and economically disruptive, contributing to adverse psychological outcomes. This study examined relations of both stay-at-home orders and the perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily life to psychological outcomes (depression, health anxiety, financial worry, social support, and loneliness) in a nationwide U.S. community adult sample (N = 500; 47% women, mean age = 40). Participants completed questionnaires assessing psychological outcomes, stay-at-home order status, and COVID-19's impact on their daily life. Being under a stay-at-home order was associated with greater health anxiety, financial worry, and loneliness. Moreover, the perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily life was positively associated with health anxiety, financial worry, and social support, but negatively associated with loneliness. Findings highlight the importance of social connection to mitigate negative psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a widely-used, theoretically-driven, and psychometrically-sound self-report measure of emotion regulation difficulties. However, at 36-items, the DERS may be challenging to administer in some situations or settings (e.g., in the course of patient care or large-scale epidemiological studies). Consequently, there is a need a briefer version of the DERS. The goal of the present studies was to develop and evaluate a 16-item version of the DERS – the DERS-16. The reliability and validity of the DERS-16 were examined in a clinical sample (N = 96) and two large community samples (Ns = 102 and 482). The validity of the DERS-16 was evaluated comparing the relative strength of the association of the two versions of the DERS with measures of emotion regulation and related constructs, psychopathology, and clinically-relevant behaviors theorized to stem from emotion regulation deficits. Results demonstrate that the DERS-16 has retained excellent internal consistency, good test-retest reliability, and good convergent and discriminant validity. Further, the DERS-16 showed minimal differences in its convergent and discriminant validity with relevant measures when compared to the original DERS. In conclusion, the DERS-16 offers a valid and brief method for the assessment of overall emotion regulation difficulties.

Despite the prominent role of emotion dysregulation in theoretical accounts of borderline personality disorder (BPD), few studies have examined emotion dysregulation in BPD. This study extends extant research by providing an experimental investigation of emotion dysregulation among outpatients with BPD. Specifically, this study modified an experimental measure of distress tolerance to examine differences between outpatients with BPD (n = 17) and those without a personality disorder (n = 18) in 2 aspects of emotion dysregulation: (a) the unwillingness to experience emotional distress in order to pursue goal-directed behavior and (b) the inability to engage in goal-directed behavior when distressed. As hypothesized, BPD participants were less willing to experience distress in order to pursue goal-directed behavior. However, BPD participants did not evidence greater difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior when distressed. Results highlight directions for future research and suggest that particular aspects of emotion dysregulation may be more or less relevant to BPD.

Smoking is highly prevalent across most anxiety disorders. Tobacco use increases risk for the later development of certain anxiety disorders, and smokers with anxiety disorders have more severe withdrawal symptoms during smoking cessation than smokers without anxiety disorders. The authors critically examined the relationships among anxiety, anxiety disorders, tobacco use, and nicotine dependence and reviewed the existing empirical literature. Future research is needed to better understand the interrelationships among these variables, including predictors, moderators, and mechanisms of action. Increased knowledge in these areas should inform prevention efforts as well as the development and improvement of smoking cessation programs for those with anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.

Objective Depressive symptoms are associated with poor smoking cessation outcomes and there remains continued interest in behavioral interventions that simultaneously target smoking and depressive symptomatology. This pilot study examined whether a behavioral activation treatment for smoking can enhance cessation outcomes. Method A sample of 68 adult smokers with mildly elevated depressive symptoms (M = 43.8 years old, 48.5% female, 72.7% African-American) seeking smoking cessation treatment were randomized to receive either behavioral activation treatment for smoking (BATS) paired with standard smoking cessation strategies including nicotine replacement therapy (n = 35) or standard smoking cessation strategies (ST) alone including nicotine replacement therapy (n = 33). BATS and ST were matched for contact time and included 8 sessions of group-based treatment. Quit date was assigned to occur at session 4 for each treatment condition. Participants completed a baseline assessment, and measures of smoking cessation outcomes (7-day verified point prevalence abstinence), depressive symptoms (BDI-II), and enjoyment from daily activities (EROS) were obtained at 1, 4, 16, and 26 weeks post assigned quit date. Results Across the follow-ups over 26 weeks, participants in BATS reported greater smoking abstinence (adjusted odds ratio = 3.59; 95% confidence interval = 1.22, 10.53; p =.02) than did those in ST. Participants in BATS also reported a greater reduction in depressive symptoms (B = -1.99, SE = .86, p = .02) than did those in ST. Conclusions Results suggest BATS is a promising intervention that may promote smoking cessation and improve depressive symptoms among underserved smokers of diverse backgrounds.

Recent investigations have demonstrated that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with a range of impulsive behaviors (e.g., risky sexual behavior and antisocial behavior). The purpose of the present study was to extend extant research by exploring whether emotion dysregulation explains the association between PTSD and impulsive behaviors. Participants were an ethnically diverse sample of 206 substance use disorder (SUD) patients in residential substance abuse treatment. Results demonstrated an association between PTSD and impulsive behaviors, with SUD patients with PTSD reporting significantly more impulsive behaviors than SUD patients without PTSD (in general and when controlling for relevant covariates). Further, emotion dysregulation was found to fully mediate the relationship between PTSD and impulsive behaviors. Results highlight the relevance of emotion dysregulation to impulsive behaviors and suggest that treatments targeting emotion dysregulation may be useful in reducing impulsive behaviors among SUD patients with PTSD.

This study examined the relationship between emotion regulation deficits and GAD-related outcomes in an analogue sample. Consistent with hypotheses, general emotion dysregulation was associated with reports of chronic worry and with analogue GAD status. Also, specific regulation deficits, including deficits in emotional clarity, acceptance of emotions, ability to engage in goal directed behaviors when distressed, impulse control, and access to effective regulation strategies, were associated with worry and analogue GAD above and beyond variance contributed by negative affectivity. These findings provide additional preliminary evidence for an emotion regulation deficit model of GAD and are discussed in terms of clinical implications and directions for future research.