Effectiveness of Berking's Emotional Competence Intervention in Emotional Self-Regulation of Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury in Isfahan Province

Spinal cord injury widely affects the physical and mental health of individuals. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Berking’s emotional competence intervention in the emotional self-regulation of several veterans with spinal cord injury.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted on all veterans with spinal cord injury in Isfahan in November and December 2019 (whose number was 264 according to the statistics provided by Treatment Deputy of the Martyr and Veterans Affairs Foundation of Isfahan Province). Initially, through purposive sampling and using the Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire as a screening instrument and a pre-test, 31 veterans with a deficit in this skill were identified and randomly assigned to experimental (16 individuals) and control (15 individuals) groups. Berking’s Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire and demographic information questionnaire were used. The intervention was performed using integrated emotional competence training in 7 one-hour sessions as separate groups. Posttest and one-month follow-up was conducted at the end of the intervention. The data were analyzed by SPSS23 using MANCOVA and repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The difference between pre-test and post-test scores was significant in all components of the Emotional Regulation Skills Questionnaire (p≤0.05), which implies the effectiveness of emotion regulation intervention in improving the emotional self-regulation of the veterans with spinal cord injury; however, no significant difference was found between the post-test and follow-up scores which indicates the continuity and stability of the findings up to the follow-up stage (p≥0.05).

Berking’s emotional competence intervention can be an effective intervention for improving veterans’ emotional self-regulation with spinal cord injury