A randomized controlled trial comparing two doses of emotion regulation therapy: Preliminary evidence that gains in attentional and metacognitive regulation reduce worry, rumination, and distress

Abstract

Background: Emotion regulation therapy (ERT) promotes resilience in distress disorders by strengthening attentional and metacognitive capacities. Regulation skills are presented with the goal of ameliorating the perseverative negative thinking (PNT) that characterizes these disorders. This study tested ERT in a randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of 16-session (ERT16) versus 8-session (ERT8) doses.

Method: Patients (N = 72) endorsing elevated worry and/or rumination and meeting diagnostic criteria for a distress disorder were randomized to ERT8 or ERT16. PNT, anxiety/depressive symptoms, functioning/quality of life, and treatment mechanisms (attention shifting, attention focusing, decentering, reappraisal) were measured at pre, mid, and post treatment. Clinical symptom severity was also assigned via diagnostic interview at each timepoint.

Results: ERT produced significant improvements across outcomes. ERT16 showed an advantage over ERT8 for distress disorder severity, worry, rumination, and attention shifting from pre-post treatment. Changes in ERT treatment mechanisms mediated changes in clinical improvement.

Conclusion: These findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of two doses of ERT in reducing PNT and distress through improvements in regulation skills.

Gov identifier: NCT04060940.

Keywords: Anxiety; Depression; Distress; Emotion regulation; Randomized controlled trial.