Examining the role of brooding, distress, and negative urgency in dysregulated behaviors: A cross‐sectional study in treatment‐seeking young people

OBJECTIVE: Dysregulated behaviors including substance use, disordered eating, and nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) have significant negative implications for individuals and health systems. It is therefore paramount to understand factors influencing behavioral dysregulation, to inform prevention and treatment approaches. The literature suggests that distress and rumination (brooding) prompt individuals to engage in behavioral dysregulation for distraction (Emotional Cascade Model), although these concepts have limited investigation in clinical, treatment‐seeking samples, particularly alongside negative urgency. This cross‐sectional study sought to examine the relationships of brooding, distress, and negative urgency with behavioral dysregulation, as well as the moderating effect of negative urgency between brooding and behavioral dysregulation, in treatment‐seeking young people. METHOD: A total of 385 treatment‐seeking young people completed cross‐sectional, self‐report measures of distress, rumination, negative urgency, and engagement in dysregulated behaviors (NSSI, alcohol use, drug use, binge eating, and purging) over the past 1−3 months. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling revealed that only negative urgency, and not brooding or distress, had a significant positive relationship with behavioral dysregulation. Negative urgency did not significantly moderate the relationship between brooding and behavioral dysregulation. CONCLUSIONS: These findings reinforce the importance of considering negative urgency in the conceptualization, prevention, and treatment of behavioral dysregulation, and contribute to the knowledge of the relationship between brooding and various dysregulated behaviors within a treatment‐seeking sample.