The Relationship between Cognitive Emotional Regulation and Mindfulness with Problematic Use of Cell-Phones among Medical Students

Mobile phone is mostly used as a personal communication tool, but in addition to the benefits it brings, it also has some risks for its users. This study aimed to determine the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation and mindfulness with the Problematic use of mobile phones among medical students.

It was a descriptive-correlational study. The statistical population included all the students (n = 5928) of the Islamic Azad University of Tehran, Medical Sciences Branch, in the first semester of 2020-2021. The sample size was estimated to be 200 using convenient sampling method. The research tools included the mobile phone overuse scale (Jenaro et al., 2007), the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (Garnefski et al., 2001) and the mindfulness scale (Baer et al., 2006). Data were analyzed through Pearson correlation and multiple regression.

The results showed that components of cognitive emotion regulation including self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing and others-blame can positively and significantly change the Problematic use of mobile phones and positive reappraisal can negatively and significantly predict the acceptance of changes in the Problematic use of mobile phones. Also, the components of mindfulness including observation, acting with awareness, being non-judging and describing can negatively and significantly predict changes in the Problematic use of mobile phones.

According to the results, it is recommended to hold various training sessions and workshops in the field of cognitive emotion regulation for students to improve the variables related to mindfulness for the correct and effective use of mobile phones.