Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: One of the most important disorders in children and adolescents is conduct disorder which has negative educational, behavioral, and social consequences. Among the variables that can be associated with behavioral disorders in adolescence are early maladaptive schemas. Another variable affecting behavior disorder is difficulty in regulating emotion. Impaired emotion regulation is key to individual functioning and adolescent social development. Because maladaptive schemas form the core self-concept of individuals, they can make individuals vulnerable to a range of shortcomings and problems if they have inconsistent content. Also, adolescents with behavioral problems are unaware of adaptive strategies and appropriate patterns of cognitive emotion regulation and cause social harm. So, the present study investigated the role of maladaptive schemas and difficulty in emotion regulation in predicting adolescent behavior disorder.
Methods: The present study was conducted by a correlational descriptive method. The statistical population included all adolescents with adolescent behavioral disorders in Hamadan City, Iran, in 2018-19. Based on the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table, 300 adolescents referring to psychological clinics in Hamadan were selected based on the available sampling method. The inclusion criteria were being 11-18 years old adolescents with conduct disorder, based on obtaining a score of 3 or more on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach & Rescolar, 2001) and observing adolescent behavior during the clinical interview. The exclusion criterion was an unwillingness to complete the questionnaires. Subjects answered the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form (Young, 1998), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz and Roemer, 2004), and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach & Rescolar, 2001). Data analysis was done using descriptive (frequency, percentage, minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (the Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis) in SPSS version 22 and following the test assumptions. The significance level of the tests was 0.05.
Results: The results showed significant relationships between maladaptive schemas (p<0.01, r=0.513) and difficulty in regulating emotions (p<0.01, r=0.589) with adolescent conduct disorder. Prediction of adolescent conduct disorder based on maladaptive schemas (β=0.237, p<0.001) and difficulty in emotion regulation (β=0.134, p<0.001) was significant. Also, maladaptive schemas explained 0.292, and difficulty in emotion regulation explained 0.383 of the variance of adolescent conduct disorder.
Conclusion: According to the results, maladaptive schemas and difficulty in emotion regulation can predict adolescent conduct disorder in adolescents with conduct disorder in Hamedan City.