The Role of Emotional Regulation in Mental Well-being of Indian Adolescents

Adolescence is an important transitional period of life marked with curiosity and experimentation with risky behaviours and experience of emotional changes which may pose threat to their mental well-being. Hence, it becomes increasingly important for adolescents to develop positive emotion regulation (ER) strategies, which promotes mental well-being in youth. The objectives of the present study were to investigate the relationship between emotional regulation and mental well-being among Indian adolescents and to explore the areas of difficulties in the emotion regulation. The study used a correlational design. A total sample of 296 adolescents (174 males and 122 female; age range 12–15 years) were recruited from a private school in Delhi NCR through purposive sampling and administered the scales of Difficulty in Emotion Regulation (DERS-18) and Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF).The obtained quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation. A significant negative relationship between the variables, viz. difficulties in emotion regulation and mental health and well-being was found. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.