The Relationship of Self Compassion, Resilience and Emotional Disregulation on Psychosomatic Complaints in Medical Students

Psychosomatic complaints are symptoms that appear in the human body, but are rooted in the psychological processes. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the three psychological factors such as self-compassion, resilience and difficulty in emotional regulation with psychosomatic complaints.

In the present descriptive-analytical study, the population of study were medical students of Yasuj University of Medical Sciences studying in 2017-2018. There were 267 participants who entered the study as convenience sampling. Neff's self-compassion questionnaire, Connor and Davidson's resilience scale, Gratz's and Roemer's difficulty in emotional regulation scale, and Takata's and Sakata's a psychosomatic complaints scale were used to collect information. Collected data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation, independent t test, one-way analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis.

The mean and standard deviation of psychosomatic symptoms among students was 27.14 ± 14.30. The mean of psychosomatic complaints had an inverse and significant relationship with self-compassion and resilience (r = -0.41 and r = -0.28 and p<0.01) and had a significant direct relationship with difficulty in regulating emotions (r = 0.51 and p<0.01).

The three variables of self-compassion, resilience and difficulty in emotional regulation have a moderate correlation with the severity of psychosomatic symptoms, and among them, the highest correlation was related to the variable of difficulty in emotional regulation. It is suggested to train medical students to increase self-compassion, resilience, and learn emotion management skills.