The relationship between emotion regulation and well-being in patients with mental disorders: A meta-analysis.
people with mental disorders
emotion regulation strategies
clinical samples
well-being
Abstract
The importance of both specific emotion regulation strategies and overall deficits in emotion regulation in the context of psychopathology is widely recognized. Besides alleviating psychological symptoms, improving mental well-being is increasingly considered important in treatment of people with mental disorders. However, no comprehensive meta-analysis on the relationship between emotion regulation and well-being in people with mental disorders has been conducted yet. The aim of the current study was to synthesize and meta-analyze evidence regarding the relationship between emotion regulation and well-being in clinical samples across studies. A systematic literature search was conducted in PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus and 94 cross-sectional effect sizes from 35 studies were meta-analyzed to explore this relationship. To be eligible for the meta-analysis, studies had to include a clinical sample, assess at least one specific emotion regulation strategy or overall deficits in emotion regulation and include well-being as outcome. The findings showed significant small to moderate negative relationships with well-being for the strategies avoidance (r = -0.31) and rumination (r = -0.19) and positive relationships with reappraisal (r = 0.19) and acceptance (r = 0.42). Grouping together putative adaptive and maladaptive strategies revealed similar sized relationships with well-being in the expected direction. Overall deficits in emotion regulation showed a negative moderate correlation with well-being (r = -0.47). No substantial difference in relationships was found when clustering studies into hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Our findings suggest that emotion regulation is not merely related with psychopathology, but also with well-being in general as well as hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Therefore, it might also be important to improve emotion regulation when aiming to improve well-being in people with mental disorders.