The Relationship between Psychological Distress and Cognitive-Attentional Syndrome of Mothers and Psychological Adjustment of Adolescents with Cancer in COVID-19 Pandemic with the Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation: A Descriptive Study

Psychological adjustment of adolescents with cancer is affected by psychological, emotional, and cognitive traits of mothers. This study aimed to determine the relationship between psychological distress and cognitive-attentional syndrome of mothers and psychological adjustment of adolescents with cancer with the mediating role of emotion regulation.

In the present descriptive-correlational study, the statistical population was adolescents with cancer under treatment and their mothers in the first 5 months of 2022 in Tehran. One-hundred and twenty-two participants were selected by voluntary sampling. Data were collected by the Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (Derogatis, 1986), Psychological Distress Scale (Kessler et al., 2003), Cognitive-Attentional Syndrome Scale (Wells, 2009), and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006) and analyzed by Pearson’s correlation, hierarchy regression, and Sobel test.

Psychological distress with a coefficient of -0.486, cognitive-attentional syndrome with a coefficient of -0.511, positive and negative emotion regulation with coefficients of 0.475 and -0.431, respectively, had a significant relationship with psychological adjustment (p<0.001). Positive and negative emotion regulation of mothers mediated the relationship between psychological distress and psychological adjustment with coefficients of 0.445 and -0.461 and mediated the relationship between cognitive-attentional syndrome and psychological adjustment with coefficients of 0.533 and -0.473, respectively (p<0.001).

Positive and negative emotion regulation of mothers mediates the relation between their psychological distress and cognitive-attentional syndrome and psychological adjustment of adolescents with cancer. In order to increase psychological adjustment of adolescents with cancer, it is recommended that physicians and nurses pay attention to the role of psychological distress and cognitive-attentional syndrome of mothers and encourage the mothers to use positive emotion regulation.