Emotion Regulation, Coping Self-Efficacy, and PTSD Symptoms Among Individuals in Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Brief Report

Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often have difficulty regulating their emotions and might use substances as an alternative to healthy emotion regulation strategies. Unsurprisingly, emotion regulation difficulties are often severe in those with substance use disorders (SUD), which are highly comorbid with PTSD. Enhancing coping self-efficacy (CSE) is a promising PTSD treatment strategy, but it is unclear how CSE relates to PTSD symptom severity in those that experience particular difficulty in regulating emotions (e.g. SUD populations), or how it might function in clinical, treatment seeking samples. This study assessed the potential moderation effect between CSE and emotion regulation difficulty with regard to PTSD symptoms among 126 adults in residential SUD treatment (Mage = 39.77 [SD = 12.25]; 37% women; 62% men; 48% white; 39% black; 14% multiracial/other). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed main effects for both emotion regulation and CSE, but no significant interaction between the two, emphasizing the distinction between belief in coping ability versus defined regulation skills and pointing to potential clinical implications. Additional research is needed to quantify the conceptual overlap between emotion regulation and CSE in this population.