Dialectical behavior therapy in autistic adults: effects on ecological subjective and physiological measures of emotion dysregulation

Table 2 Descriptive statistics,paired samples t-test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test results for emotion selections and need for emotion regulation

	Pre DBT		Post DBT
	n	%	n	%	Paired t-test / Wilcoxon W	p-value	Effect size (Cohen’s d/ Rank biserial correlations)
Joy	256	12.5	380	18.7	68.5	0.008	− 0.57
Calm	522	25.5	693	34.2	79.5	0.026	− 0.46
Interest	169	8.3	320	15.8	50.5	0.025	− 0.56
Anxiety	530	25.9	516	25.5	167	0.814	0.05
Anger	190	9.3	268	13.2	82.5	0.094	− 0.40
Shame	61	3.0	69	3.4	107	0.716	− 0.07
Disgust	33	1.6	18	0.9	90	0.079	0.50
Sadness	267	13.0	279	13.8	147	0.796	0.06
Guilt	80	3.9	107	5.3	59	0.257	− 0.31
Surprise	26	1.3	48	2.4	38.5	0.377	− 0.27
I have an emotion I cannot name	191	9.3	72	3.5	129	0.015	0.68
I have no emotion	339	16.6	274	13.5	184	0.165	0.33
Multiple Emotions	459	22.4	657	32.4	79	0.020	− 0.49
Conflicting emotions	130	28.3	270	41.1	38.5	0.004	− 0.70
Need for emotion regulation
Need to decrease	879	43.4	798	39.4	231	0.401	0.17
Need to maintain	913	45.1	970	47.9	136	0.601	− 0.10
Need to increase	253	12.5	361	17.8	65	0.082	− 0.44

Frequencies were computed by summing the number of times each participant selected a specific emotion (e.g., joy) before and after DBT. These sums were then divided by the total number of EMA for all emotions (EMA_pre=2046; EMA_post=2026) and multiplied by 100 to obtain percentages. Thus, method assumes that every participant selected each emotion at least once

ISSN: 2051-6673