The Mediating role of Difficulties in Emotion Regulation in Effect of Rumination on Post-traumatic stress symptoms and Cancer-related Distress in breast cancer patients

This study examines the mediating role of difficulties in emotion regulation in effect of rumination on post-traumatic stress symptoms and cancer-related distress in breast cancer patients.

This is a cross-sectional study with a positivism paradigm, a quantitative approach and in the framework of a correlational design of the type of Structural equation modeling. A total of 220 women with breast cancer in Tehran completed the PCL-5 Checklist, The Ruminative Response Scale (RRS), The Impact of Event Scale, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16). The findings were analyzed through the advanced statistical method of structural equation modeling and using SPSS26 and SmartPLS 4 software.

The model fit indices were goof, SRMR = 0.5 and NFI = 93. The results obtained from structural equation modeling show a direct and significant effect of rumination on PTSD (β=0.219; T=3.31; P<.01), rumination on emotional dysregulation (β=0.257; T=4.05; P<.001) and emotional dysregulation on distress (β=0.406; T=6.56; P<.001) and the non-significance of rumination on PTSD (β=0.098; T=1.48; P=.138) was in the framework of the conceptual model of the present study. It is worth mentioning that in the effect of rumination on emotional dysregulation PTSD, it had a partial mediating role and in the effect of rumination on distress, it had a full mediating role.

Taken together, from the obtained results, it can be concluded that the predictive effect of rumination on the symptoms of post-traumatic stress and distress in breast cancer patients will significantly increase with an increase in the level of emotional dysregulation. emotion regulation in breast cancer patients can be a protective factor in order to manage psychological problems caused by cancer.