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Co-developmental Trajectories of Defiant/Headstrong, Irritability, and Prosocial Emotions from Preschool Age to Early Adolescence

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Abstract

This study ascertains how the proposed subtypes and specifiers of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) based on irritability and prosocial emotions co-develop and describes the clinical characteristics of the resultant classes. A sample of 488 community children was followed up from ages 3 to 12 years and assessed with categorical and dimensional measures answered by parents and teachers. Latent class growth analysis for three parallel processes [defiant/headstrong, irritability, and limited prosocial emotions (LPE)] identified a 4-class model with adequate entropy (.912) and posterior probabilities of class membership (≥ .921). Class 1 (n = 38, 7.9%) was made up of children with defiant/headstrong with chronic irritability and LPE. Class 2 (n = 128, 26.3%) was comprised of children with defiant/headstrong with chronic irritability and typical prosocial emotions. Class 3 (n = 101, 20.7%) clustered children with LPE without defiant/headstrong and without irritability. Class 4 (n = 220, 45.1%) included children with the lowest scores in all the processes. The classes were distinguishable and showed different clinical characteristics through development. These findings support the validity of ICD-11 ODD subtypes based on chronic irritability and may help to guide clinicians’ decision-making regarding treating oppositionality in children.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities [Grant PGC2018-095239-B-I00 (MICIU/FEDER)].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unitat d’Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Barcelona, Spain

    Lourdes Ezpeleta, Eva Penelo, J. Blas Navarro, Núria de la Osa & Esther Trepat

  2. Departament de Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut. Edifici B, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193, Barcelona, Spain

    Lourdes Ezpeleta, Núria de la Osa & Esther Trepat

  3. Departament de Psicobiologia i de Metodologia de les Ciències del Comportament, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Eva Penelo & J. Blas Navarro

Authors
  1. Lourdes Ezpeleta
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  2. Eva Penelo
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  3. J. Blas Navarro
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  4. Núria de la Osa
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  5. Esther Trepat
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Correspondence to Lourdes Ezpeleta.

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The project was approved by the Ethics Committee on Animal and Human Experimentation of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

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Ezpeleta, L., Penelo, E., Navarro, J.B. et al. Co-developmental Trajectories of Defiant/Headstrong, Irritability, and Prosocial Emotions from Preschool Age to Early Adolescence. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 53, 908–918 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01180-z

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