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The objective of the present study was to conduct a systematic review to analyze the relationship between emotional regulation, conceptualized as a transdiagnostic construct, and the group of disorders that the DSM-5 categorizes as anxiety disorders. To this end, a comprehensive bibliographic search was conducted across the PsycINFO, Scopus, Psicodoc, and MedLine databases. A total of 570 articles were extracted, of which 41 were selected for review. The findings indicated a statistically significant relationship between the various anxiety disorders evaluated in the studies and emotional regulation. In this regard, the analysis of the extant literature revealed that the results of studies examining the relationship between emotional regulation and anxiety symptoms supported our two main hypotheses. Firstly, the implementation of adaptive emotional regulation strategies or functional emotional regulation would correlate positively with the reduction of anxiety symptoms in subjects who meet the diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder. Secondly, the implementation of maladaptive regulation strategies or dysfunctional emotional regulation would be associated with the symptoms of the different anxiety disorders. Furthermore, a third hypothesis was proposed, which suggests that comorbidity between different anxiety disorders is associated with dysfunctional emotional regulation.
This hypothesis was supported by the only study found that analyzed this fact. Consequently, while it is acknowledged that not all studies included in the review statistically analyzed the relationship between emotional regulation and the symptoms of the various anxiety disorders evaluated, it can be concluded that, despite the existence of possible modulating variables, emotional regulation may function as a transdiagnostic process underlying anxiety disorders. This is evidenced in its relationship with the anxiety symptoms experienced by subjects who meet the diagnostic criteria for some type of anxiety disorder according to the DSM-5. Additionally, although our main transdiagnostic hypotheses were confirmed, the differential impact of various forms of emotional regulation on the different anxiety disorders assessed or included in the analyzed articles suggests that further research is needed in this field of study
