Early life stress is an important factor in later psychopathology, including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of early life stress on psychiatric symptoms within a sample of Syrian refugees. In this model, the use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies was assessed as a potential mediator of the relationship between early life stress and current symptoms of PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Bootstrap analyses were generated to test the indirect effect of emotion regulation (Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire) on the relationship between early life stress (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire), PTSD (Harvard Trauma Questionnaire), depressive (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7) symptoms in eighty-nine Syrian refugees resided in Germany (n = 49) and Jordan (n = 40). The indirect effect of maladaptive strategies was significant between early life stress and psychopathology, whereas the mediation effect of adaptive strategies was not significant. The findings provide an evidence that emotional dysregulation is an underlying factor affecting psychological symptoms in refugees with adverse childhood experiences. These results suggest targeting cognitive emotion regulation in prospective prevention and treatment strategies.

These results suggest that a biologically informed genetic profile score can capture the genetic disposition to HPA axis reactivity and moderates the influence of early environmental factors on facial emotion recognition. Further research should investigate the neural mechanisms underlying this moderation. The GPS used here might prove a powerful tool for studying inter-individual differences in vulnerability to early life stress.