Predicting Vicarious Post Traumatic Growth Based on Cognitive Flexibility and Cognitive Reappraisal in Nurses providing Services to Kermanshah Earthquake Victims

Earthquake is one of the natural disasters that, in addition to cause injuries to survivors, can have some positive consequences. One of these consequences is post-traumatic growth, which is the positive psychological consequence of indirect exposure to a traumatic event. The aim of this study was to predict the vicarious post traumatic growth based on cognitive flexibility and cognitive reappraisal in nurses providing services to Kermanshah earthquake victims.

This study was a descriptive-correlational research. The statistical population consisted of all nurses providing medical services to earthquake victims in Kermanshah in 2018, among them 181 nurses were selected by available sampling method. Data were collected by Tedeschi & Calhoun Post-Traumatic Growth Scale (CIS), Dennis & Vander wal Cognitive Flexibility (2010) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation of Garnefski et al. (2001). Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and Simultaneous regression tests in SPSS 25 software.

The results showed a significant positive correlation between cognitive flexibility and cognitive reappraisal with post-traumatic growth. The results of regression analysis also showed that cognitive reappraisal and cognitive flexibility can predict post-traumatic growth (p<0.05).

The results revealed the importance role of cognitive flexibility and cognitive reappraisal in predicting post-traumatic growth in nurses. Therefore, increasing the cognitive flexibility and cognitive reappraisal training, may help the mental development of nurses.