Pencea L, Munoz AP, Maples-Keller JL, et al. - Researchers examined the predictive value of emotion dysregulation for the development of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms following a traumatic event above and beyond other known associated factors, including depressive symptoms, baseline PTSD symptoms, total traumas experienced, and exposure to interpersonal trauma. From the emergency department at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, they recruited 135 participants and performed their follow-up assessment at 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-months following trauma exposure. Based on symptoms assessed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months, Latent Growth Mixture Modeling led to the identification of three PTSD symptom trajectories: “chronic”, “recovery”, and “resilient”. As per linear regression modeling, there was a significant correlation of emotion dysregulation with the probability of developing chronic PTSD symptoms and it accounted for an additional 7% of the unique predictive variance after controlling for trauma exposure, baseline PTSD, and depressive symptoms. Based on these findings, they suggest the utility of emotion dysregulation as both a predictor of chronic PTSD and as a treatment target. Thus, the development of chronic PTSD among these at-risk individuals may decrease in correlation to recognizing individuals with raised levels of emotion dysregulation at the time of trauma and implementing treatments designed to improve emotion regulation.