Author(s): TAO, R.R., SIT, C.H.P., YANG, Y., LIU, C., Institution: THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG, Country: HONG KONG, Abstract-ID: 345

INTRODUCTION: Emotion dysregulation is defined as the inability to modify the intensity and quality of emotions in an adaptive manner that is necessary to achieve goals, resulting in emotional over-reactivity, lability, and irritability. Physical activity and psychological treatment have demonstrated the potential to improve emotion dysregulation in children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs), however, there have been no studies to synthesize such evidence systematically. This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effects of physical activity and psychological treatment (i.e., behavioral therapy and cognitive training) on emotion dysregulation in children with NDDs, and their comparative effectiveness.
METHODS: Web of Science, PubMed, Medline, PsycINFO, and SPORTDiscus were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from database inception to December 2023. RCTs examining the effectiveness of physical activity or psychological interventions for addressing emotion dysregulation in children aged 5-17 years diagnosed with NDDs were included. Frequentist network meta-analyses were conducted utilizing standardized mean differences (SMD) along with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), employing random effects models. These analyses aimed to assess post-intervention differences in emotion dysregulation, encompassing multiple processes such as emotion recognition/understanding (ERU), emotion reactivity/negativity/lability (ERNL), and emotion regulation (EREG).
RESULTS: Eighteen RCTs involving 1,068 participants were included in the analyses. Both physical activity intervention (SMD=0.41; 95%CI: 0.05 to 0.77) and psychological treatment (SMD=0.43; 95%CI: 0.15 to 0.71) showed superior effectiveness in improving emotion dysregulation compared with usual care controls. Regarding specific processes of emotion dysregulation, regular physical activity interventions had the highest probability of being the most effective for EREG with a moderate positive effect (SMD=0.47; 95%CI: 0.08 to 0.85), followed by psychological treatment (SMD=0.44, 95%CI: 0.14 to 0.73) compared to usual care control. However, no significant effects were observed in attenuating ERNL for either physical activity intervention (SMD=0.51; 95% CI: -0.04 to 1.06) or psychological treatment (SMD=0.59; 95% CI: -0.27 to 1.45). To date, there have been no RCTs examining the effectiveness of physical activity intervention on ERU.
CONCLUSION: The findings of our study support the utilization of both physical activity and psychological treatment for improving emotion dysregulation in children with NDDs. Further RCTs are warranted to validate the potential effects on various aspects of emotion dysregulation and to explore potential differences in effectiveness across specific processes.