Empathy and psychopathology in children and adolescents: the role of parental mental illness and emotion regulation
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Objective: Although empathy is known to be a strength, recent studies suggest that empathy can be a risk factor for psychopathology under certain conditions in children. This study examines parental mental illness as such a condition. Further, it aims to investigate whether maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) mediates the relationship between empathy and psychopathological symptoms of children. Methods: Participants were 100 children of parents with a mental illness (55% female) and 87 children of parents without a mental illness (50% female) aged 6 - 16 years and their parents. Results: Greater cognitive empathy was related to more psychopathological symptoms in COPMI, but not in COPWMI. In addition, in COPMI maladaptive ER mediated this relationship. In contrast, greater affective empathy was associated with more psychopathological symptoms regardless of whether parents had a mental illness. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the importance of implementing preventive programs for COPMI that specifically target the reduction of maladaptive ER.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1366366 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Frontiers in psychiatry |
Volume | 15 (2024) |
Publication status | Published - 8 Apr 2024 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
ORCID | /0000-0002-7278-5711/work/161888018 |
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Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- children of parents with mental illness, emotion regulation, empathy, parents with mental illness, transgenerational transmission of mental disorders