Evidence of emotion dysregulation as a core symptom of adult ADHD: A systematic review

by Ana-María Soler-Gutiérrez, Juan-Carlos Pérez-González, Julia Mayas

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder, with an onset in childhood, that accompanies the person throughout their life, with prevalence between 3 and 5% in adults. Recent studies point towards a fourth core symptom of the disorder related to the emotional information processing that would explain the repercussions that ADHD has on the social, academic, and professional life of the people affected. This review aims to describe emotion dysregulation features as well as the brain activity associated in adults with ADHD. A search of the scientific literature was launched in specialized databases: PsycInfo, Medline, Eric, PsycArticle, Psicodoc and Scopus, following PRISMA guidelines. Twenty-two articles met the inclusion criteria: (a) an ADHD clinical diagnosis, (b) participants over 18 years old, (c) emotion regulation measurement, (d) empirical studies, and (c) in English. Due to the heterogeneity of the studies included, they were classified into three sections: measures and features of emotion regulation (ER) in people with ADHD, neurological and psychophysiological activity related to ER, and treatments. The studies found that meet the selection criteria are scarce and very heterogeneous both in aims and in sample features. Adults with ADHD show a more frequent use of non-adaptive emotion regulation strategies compared to people without ADHD symptoms. Moreover, emotion dysregulation was associated with symptom severity, executive functioning, psychiatric comorbidities, and even with criminal conviction. Different patterns of brain activity were observed when people with and without ADHD were compared. These results may suggest that psychopharmacological treatments as well as behavioral therapies could be useful tools for improving emotional difficulties in adult ADHD.