Trauma and PTSD Interventions Across Clinical and Humanitarian Contexts
3 - (OP15) Keeping Calm in the Storm: A Cross-sectional Investigation of Emotion Regulation in African Australian Youth from Refugee and Asylum-seeker Backgrounds
Friday, June 26, 2026
9:39 AM - 9:56 AM PDT
Location: Yerba Buena Salon 13, B3 Level
Keywords: Emotion Regulation, Trauma, Transdiagnostic Recommended Readings: Nickerson, A. (2018). Pathways to Recovery: Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Refugee Mental Health. In: Morina, N., Nickerson, A. (eds) Mental Health of Refugee and Conflict-Affected Populations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97046-2_5, Nickerson, A., Bryant, R. A., Schnyder, U., Schick, M., Mueller, J., & Morina, N. (2015). Emotion dysregulation mediates the relationship between trauma exposure, post-migration living difficulties and psychological outcomes in traumatized refugees. Journal of affective disorders, 173, 185–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.10.043, Zaki, J., & Williams, W. C. (2013). Interpersonal emotion regulation. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 13(5), 803–810. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033839, ,
PhD Candidate Monash University Ryde, New South Wales, Australia
Background: Exposure to trauma and stress is widely understood to disrupt adaptive emotion regulation, leading to more protracted periods of emotional distress and heightened risk of mental health difficulties. Despite substantial growth in research interest in emotion regulation over past decades, culturally and linguistically diverse populations – especially those from refugee and asylum-seeker backgrounds - remain markedly underrepresented and no study has considered the role of interpersonal emotion regulation. Young African Australians from refugee and asylum-seeker backgrounds are one group in which emotion regulation may be a key mechanism shaping psychological outcomes. Differences in emotion regulation may therefore explain why some African Australian youth experience significant psychosocial difficulties, while others demonstrate resilience and wellbeing. Understanding emotion regulation as a transdiagnostic mechanism implicated in recovery pathways is imperative for improving treatment progress in a population that already faces substantial barriers to accessing care.
Method: We collaborated with community to co-design a mixed-methods cross-sectional study to examine emotion regulation as a potential mechanism underlying mental health and wellbeing among 98 African Australian youth (aged 15 - 35 years) from refugee and asylum-seeker backgrounds. Participants completed an online battery of well-validated questionnaires, assessing stressful life experiences, emotion regulation (general and interpersonal), mental health, and wellbeing, and answered three qualitative questions exploring the role of culture.
Results: Participants reported high levels of trauma exposure and ongoing stressors which were associated with greater difficulties in emotion regulation. Daily hassles showed the strongest association with emotion regulation and was the only stressor variable linked to poorer wellbeing. Further, difficulties in (general) emotion regulation emerged as a significant predictor of greater psychological distress (i.e., externalising, internalising, and posttraumatic stress symptoms) and lower wellbeing, whereas interpersonal emotion regulation uniquely predicted enhanced wellbeing.
Conclusion: Consistent with the model outlining pathways from refugee experiences to psychological outcomes, emotion regulation appeared to be a key mechanism associated with mental health and wellbeing among African Australian youth. These findings suggest emotion regulation may be an important target for phase-based cognitive-behavioural interventions aiming to improve mental health and enhance quality of life among young people from refugee and asylum-seeker backgrounds.
Learning Objectives:
Describe emotion regulation as a transdiagnostic mechanism and its relationship with refugee mental health and wellbeing.
