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Relations Between Tic Severity, Emotion Regulation, and Social Outcomes in Youth with Tourette Syndrome

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Abstract

This study examined associations between tic severity, emotion regulation, social functioning, and social impairment in youth with Tourette Syndrome (TS). Emotion regulation was examined as a mediator between tic severity and social outcomes. Seventy-seven caregivers of youth with TS (M age = 13.1 years; SD = 2.29) were administered proxy-report measures of tic severity, emotion regulation, social functioning, and social impairment. Total and motor tic severity were negatively associated with emotion regulation and social functioning, and positively associated with social impairment (r’s = 0.23 to 0.43). Vocal tic severity was not related to emotion regulation or social functioning, but was positively associated with social impairment (r = 0.36). Emotion regulation mediated the relations between total tic severity and both social outcomes, and motor tic severity and both social outcomes. Interventions that target emotion regulation would likely be a beneficial adjunctive therapy for youth with TS, and may result in improved social outcomes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Lauren F. Quast, Lindsay D. Rosenthal, Grace K. Cushman, Ana M. Gutiérrez-Colina & Ronald L. Blount

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Emily I. Braley

  3. Tourette Information Center and Support (TICS) of Georgia, Inc., Atlanta, GA, USA

    Patricia Kardon

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  1. Lauren F. Quast
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  2. Lindsay D. Rosenthal
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Correspondence to Lauren F. Quast.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Georgia.

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Quast, L.F., Rosenthal, L.D., Cushman, G.K. et al. Relations Between Tic Severity, Emotion Regulation, and Social Outcomes in Youth with Tourette Syndrome. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 51, 366–376 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-019-00948-8

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