The Mediating Role of Psychological Distress, Reappraisal Emotion-Regulation Strategy and Suppression Emotion-Regulation Strategy in the Relationship between Domestic Violence and Cognitive Functions in Female Victims of Violence

The purpose of this study was to provide a model for the relationship between domestic violence and cognitive functions by examining the mediating role of psychological distress and emotion-regulation strategies in female victims of violence through a path analysis. The statistical population of this study consisted of female victims of violence who visited different branches of Tehran Forensic Medicine Center in 2018. Considering the relationship between research variables in such sample, the research method was descriptive-correlative type. The relationship between the variables was analyzed according to the research goals. After obtaining subjects’ informed consent, 200 abused women were selected by a purposive sampling method, based on entry-exit criteria. Then they were asked to fill out questionnairs including Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) (Gross and John 2003), Domestic Violence Questionnaire (Pournaghash Tehrani, 2005), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) (2005) and the short-form version of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) (1995). Results showed that the proposed modified empirical model has good fit indices. According to this model, domestic violence has direct and indirect effects on cognitive functions. In addition, psychological distress, reappraisal emotion-regulation strategy and suppression emotion-regulation strategy had a mediating role in the relationship between domestic violence and cognitive functions.