The contributions of social functioning and emotion dysregulation to depression severity in patients with depressive disorders

Abstract

Background: Emotion dysregulation and social functioning are important predictors of depression severity. It remains unclear whether these factors independently or interactively contribute to depression severity amongst psychiatric patients with depressive disorders.

Method: 340 psychiatric outpatients with a principal depressive disorder were interviewed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). Participants' social functioning and depression severity were rated during the SCID evaluation, and emotion dysregulation was assessed concurrently using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Hierarchical regression analyses examined the independent and interactive effects of social functioning and emotion dysregulation on depression severity.

Results: Emotion dysregulation (b = 0.13, SE = 0.04, p = .003) was significantly associated with greater depression severity. Social functioning (b = 2.10, SE = 1.19, p = .078) and its interaction with emotion dysregulation (b = -0.01, SE = 0.01, p = .265) were not significant predictors. These findings indicate that the effect of social functioning on depression severity was not robust when controlling for emotion dysregulation and their interaction, and that emotion dysregulation did not moderate the relationship between social functioning and depression severity.

Conclusion: Emotion dysregulation plays a robust, independent role in predicting depression severity, even when accounting for social functioning and demographic covariates. This study contributes to the growing literature on the intersection of emotion dysregulation and social functioning in depression and extends this work to a clinically diagnosed sample. Future research should examine how changes in these variables during treatment relate to symptom improvement.

Keywords: Depression; Depression severity; Emotion dysregulation; Interpersonal emotion regulation; Social functioning.