Psychometric Properties of The Clinician Affective Reactivity Index for Assessment of Irritability in a Clinical Sample of Turkish Children and Adolescents

Do emotional intelligence, dysregulation and theory of mind predict irritability in adolescents with DMDD and ADHD?

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to compare adolescents with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) and comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and healthy control adolescents in terms of emotional intelligence (EI), emotion regulation (ER) and theory of mind (ToM) abilities.

METHODS

Twenty-eight adolescents with DMDD and ADHD formed the DMDD group were compared to 31 healthy controls. We administered the Affective Reactivity Index (ARI), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Kiddie-SADS, Bar-On Emotional Intelligence Test, Faux Pas, Comprehension Test, Unexpected Outcomes Test, Faces Test and Reading Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) as ToM skills.

RESULTS

ARI and DERS scores were significantly elevated in the DMDD-ADHD group. The DMDD-ADHD group had significantly lower ToM skills and emotional intelligence (p < .05). When RMET, Bar-On Emotional Intelligence Test -general mood, DERS- impulsivity scores were compared between the groups, their effect sizes were as follows: 0.52, 0.81, 0.79, respectively. DERS, emotional intelligence and ToM scores were correlated in the DMDD group. In the linear regression analysis, the sole significant predictors of self-reported irritability were EI and ED total scores.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests that adolescents with DMDD and ADHD face difficulties in peer relationships, mentalizing, various domains of emotional intelligence andregulation. .

A comparison of the social cognition and neurocognitive characteristics of adolescents with suicide behavior, adolescent with depression and healthy controls

INTRODUCTION

Deficits in neurocognition and social-cognition have been suggested to be an endophenotype for suicidal behavior. We aimed to compare the social-cognition and neurocognitive characteristics of adolescents diagnosed with depression with and without suicidal behavior and to investigate whether these functions predict suicide.

METHOD

Adolescents diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with suicidal behavior (n = 42); MDD without suicidal behavior (n = 44) and age- and sex-matched controls (n = 43) were included. The University of Pennsylvania Computerized Neurobehavioral Test Battery and Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) were used to evaluate social-cognition and neurocognitive characteristics.

RESULTS

Several neurocognitive domain values of MDD groups, were significantly different from the control group. Neutral emotion recognition task (p = 0.025) and ASSQ scores were found to be significantly impaired in the patient groups (p < 0.001). Logistic regression analysis showed that, only the increase in the Suicide Probability Scale score was found to be significant as a risk factor predicting suicide (p = 0.007, OR: 1.246).

CONCLUSION

While the neurocognitive and social-cognitive performances of adolescents with MDD were significantly lower than the control group, these performances in the two depression groups were similar. When the predictors of suicidal behavior were examined, it was found that only the increase in suicidal ideation scores predicted suicide.

Differential Effects of Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder Comorbidity in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder on Social Cognition and Empathy

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate social cognition and empathy properties in children among Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD) + Attention and Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD); ADHD and healthy controls from Türkiye.

METHODS

Twenty-two children with DMDD were compared to matched 30 children with ADHD and 60 healthy controls. We administered Affective Reactivity Index (ARI), KaSi Empathy Scale, Kiddie-SADS, and Reading Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) to evaluate Theory of Mind skills to all study participants.

RESULTS

DMDD + ADHD group had lower performance in ToM skills and empathy than in two groups. The ARI scores were found to be statistically significantly higher in the DMDD group than in two groups. It was also found that ARI, empathy, and ToM scores were significantly related in children with DMDD + ADHD.

CONCLUSION

These results might be important to understand the difficulties in social functioning and interpersonal relationship in children with DMDD and ADHD. Children with DMDD may attend specific therapeutic programs which include specific techniques in social cognition, emotion regulation, and irritability.