Predictors of middle childhood psychosomatic problems: An emotion regulation approach

Abstract

Development of the psychosomatic problems picky eating and headache and stomachache complaints in middle childhood was investigated from an emotion regulation perspective. The role of negative emotionality and family emotion regulatory factors (attachment to mother and parental perceived control) was studied. The sample ðN ¼ 87Þ was a predominantly middleclass, community sample. The study was longitudinal, based on data from several data collections between child age 11 months and 9 years. The results showed that headache and stomachache complaints were mainly predicted by early negative emotionality, and picky eating by the family factors. More negative emotionality, insecure attachment and less perceived control were related to more psychosomatic problems in linear and interaction models. The findings were interpreted as showing that by considering emotion regulation, a fruitful perspective for understanding the development of psychosomatic problems could be elaborated. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Key words: psychosomatic problems; longitudinal prediction; middle childhood; negative emotionality; attachment; parental perceived controlThe present study aimed to prospectively investigate in a community sample the role of early individual and family factors for psychosomatic symptoms in middle childhood. Psychosomatic problems refer to physical symptoms or illnesses that result from the interplay of psychosocial and physiological processes (Sarafino, 1998). To enhance the understanding of the development of headache, stomachache and picky eating problems as seen in 8-9-year-old children, we applied an emotion regulation perspective with a focus on early negative emotional expressions (cf. Taylor, 1994). This should be a fruitful approach as negative emotions have been shown to be connected to psychosomatic problems, and there are clear relations between somatic complaints and the two main emotion-based psychiatric disorders, anxiety and depression (e.g.

Attachment, social information processing, and friendship quality of early adolescent girls and boys

“…This pattern suggests that when confronted with a difficult situation with their best friend, insecure boys may have difficulty regulating the appropriate emotion. Existing literature does suggest that there is a negative association between attachment security and emotion regulation (Hagekull & Bohlin, 2004) and that the role of emotion regulation in SIP is important (Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). Here, we have shown that the ability to choose an adaptive emotion may be difficult for boys who have an insecure relationship with their fathers.…”

Emotion Regulation and Aggressive Behavior in Preschoolers: The Mediating Role of Social Information Processing

“…The intercorrelation between the two scales was r = -0.56, p \ 0.001. Before summing scores from the two scales to form one measure of emotion regulation, inhibitory control scores were reversed and both scales were standardized [17,37]. A high value denoted that the child was high in anger/frustration and low in inhibitory control (hereinafter referred to as maladaptive emotion regulation).…”

Oral Presentations

“…This is important for prevention, treatment and recovery from the disease. Conclusions HPR, a part of negative emotionality, already proved to be related to psychosomatic disorders [9] of temperament, is an important risk factor for developing migraine, but not other primary headaches.…”