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J Youth Adolescence (2017) 46:687700 DOI 10.1007/s10964-017-0629-0
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10964-017-0629-0&domain=pdf
Web End = Emotional Awareness in Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Youth: A Meta-Analytic Review
Lena Sendzik1 Johanna . Schfer1 Andrea C. Samson2,3 Eva Naumann4 Brunna Tuschen-Cafer1
Received: 24 October 2016 / Accepted: 3 January 2017 / Published online: 18 January 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017
Abstract Emotion regulation is assumed to play an important role in depressive and anxiety symptoms in youth. However, the role of core components of emotion regulation, such as emotional awareness, is not well understood so far. Thus this meta-analysis aimed to examine the relationship between depressive and anxiety symptoms with emotional awareness in youth. A systematic literature search (PsycINFO, Medline, Google Scholar) identied 21 studies, from which 34 effect sizes were extracted. Results from random effects models showed that difculties in emotional awareness were signicantly correlated with a medium effect size for each, depressive and anxiety symptoms separately, and for their combined effects (overall outcome). Additionally, further analyses revealed that age was a signicant moderator of the relationship between emotional awareness with depressive and anxiety symptoms, with younger samples (mean age 12 years) showing a stronger association between difculties in emotional awareness and depressive and anxiety symptoms as compared to older samples (mean age > 12 years). The results suggest that emotional awareness may be of relevance for depressive and anxiety symptoms in youth. Future work is required to examine longitudinal developments,
moderators, and mediators in multi-method approaches. Moreover, children and adolescents may benet from interventions that aim to enhance emotional awareness.
Keywords Emotional awareness Depression Anxiety Children Adolescents Meta-analysis
Introduction
Adolescence is characterized by profound changes in endocrinological (e.g., related to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis), neuro-cognitive (e.g., working memory, inhibitory control, abstract thought, decision making, and perspective taking), and socio-emotional (e.g., higher sensitivity to social stressors) domains (Blakemore and Robbins 2012; de Veld et al. 2012; Dumontheil 2014; Somerville and Casey 2010; Spear 2009) and represents a time of increased risk for the development of psychological symptoms and the onset of full-blown mental disorders (Casey et al. 2008; Lee et al. 2014; Paus et al. 2008). Recent estimates of prevalence place depressive and anxiety disorders among the most frequent mental disorders in youth (Polanczyk et al. 2015).