Health-related quality of life and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the unemployed: a cross-sectional survey

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes

Lourdes Rey²  Natalio Extremera¹ 

[1] Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Malaga, Campus de Teatinos s/n. Málaga, Malaga, 29071, Spain;Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment, University of Malaga, Malaga, Spain

关键词: Emotion regulation strategies;    Cognitive coping;    Unemployment;    Quality of life;   

Others  :  1144333
DOI  :  10.1186/s12955-014-0172-6

 received in 2014-06-17, accepted in 2014-11-14,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

The loss of one’s job has been conceptualized as a major stressful life event in an adult’s life and has consistently been associated with lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies after the experience of stressful events has emerged as an important predictor of adverse psychological and health outcomes. However, the effect of these coping strategies on the HRQoL of unemployed people has not been examined until now. We aimed to study the associations of these cognitive emotion regulation strategies on HRQoL of unemployed people.

Methods

Using cross-sectional data, 1,125 unemployed adults were assessed using a Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for cognitive coping and SF-12 to assess HRQoL. We studied the effect of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on mental and physical health composite separately, adjusting for gender, age, educational level and length of unemployment, using hierarchical regression analyses.

Results

Results showed unemployed men tended to express greater use of self-blame, other-blame, and catastrophizing, and lower use of perspective taking strategies when confronted with unemployment. Moreover, self-blame (for mental health composite only), blaming others, rumination, and catastrophizing negatively correlated, while positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, planning, and positive refocusing positively correlated with both mental and physical health composite in unemployed people. Further hierarchical regression analyses indicate that five strategies (a lower reported use of self-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing, as well as higher scores of positive reappraisal and positive refocusing) and three strategies (lower scores of catastrophizing and rumination and high scores in planning) have significant and independent contributions, beyond gender, age, educational level and length of unemployment, to the prediction of mental health and physical health composite, respectively.

Conclusions

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies appeared to be significantly correlated with HRQoL in unemployed people. Our findings suggest the potential value of including assistance programs focused on cognitive emotion regulation strategies to complement current psychosocial and health approaches aimed at preserving or improving unemployed people’s HRQoL.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Extremera and Rey; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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