Emotion regulation in pediatric bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis of published studies

Background: Emotion regulation is a relatively recent topic in psychiatry, and has only recently begun to be tested across Pediatric Bipolar Disorder (PBD). To date, no meta-analysis has investigated the presence of emotion regulation deficits in PBD patients. Objectives: The aim of this study is to understand where the literature stands on this topic, as well as how different researchers are measuring and grasping the concept of emotion regulation in pediatric bipolar disorders. Methods: A systematic search of trials using the terms ("Pediatric Bipolar Disorder") AND ("Emotion Regulation" OR "Affect Regulation" OR "Mood Lability" OR "Mood Instability" OR "Irritability") was conducted using PubMed, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Web of Science and Psych Info databases. Of the initial 366 articles identified, 8 met eligibility criteria for the meta-analysis and were included in this study. Results: There is a statistically significant difference in Accuracy in Emotion Regulation tasks, with a tendency for lower accuracy in PBD patients; however, both groups did not differ statistically regarding Response Time. Conclusion: Our data suggests that PBD patients do present emotion regulation deficits, particularly regarding facial emotion recognition and affective language interference tasks mediated by cognitive assignments. These results have important implications in developing novel psychotherapeutic interventions for this population.