| Due to environmental influences, risk, and vulnerability pathways, homeless youth are predisposed to display high levels of emotional dysregulation and behavioral disinhibition. Those temperamental traits of negative affectivity (NA), or increased fear and emotional expression, low effortful control (EC), and regulation of responses, have the potential to develop pathologies such as anxiety, depression, and substance use. Additionally, the review on traumatic brain injury research has found a multitude of evidence supporting anxiety, depression, and substance abuse development post TBI due to disruptions to the prefrontal cortex as well as alterations in reward pathways. By using the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ), Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF), Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), and self-reported head injury, this study was an investigation of the role that reported head injury has on the relationship between temperament, psychopathology, and executive functioning. A total of 93 participants between 18-22 years old were designated into a moderate/severe TBI group, mild TBI group, or a control group (no TBI). Logistic regressions found that NA was found to be significantly related to major depressive episodes (x2=3.849, p=.05, B=1.023 ), as well as generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis (x2= 5.623, p=.018, B=1.047). Binary regression analyses indicated that severity of traumatic brain injury significantly predicted the development of a GAD diagnosis (x2=5.166, p=.023, B=2.56 ). Finally, Pearson's correlation indicated statistically significant relationships between NA and the Behavioral Regulation Index (r=.252, p=.02 ), Metacognition Index (r=.301, p=.004 ), and Global Executive Composite (r=.291, p=.007 ). Head injury was found to mediate each of those relationships. |
