Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies Used by Critical Care Nurses: A Descriptive-Analytic Study

Introduction: Emotions have significant roles in different aspects of life such as coping with stressful and traumatic life events. Therefore, success in life depends not only on intellectual abilities, but also on emotion regulation competence. Emotion regulation is of greater importance in professions with high levels of daily occupational stress such as nursing. The aim of this study was to determine cognitive emotion regulation strategies used by a group of Iranian critical care nurses. Methods: This descriptive-analytic study was conducted on 193 critical care nurses. They were recruited through stratified random sampling from ICU, CCU, and Hemodialysis center and Emergency departments of six hospitals under supervision of Qazvin university of medical science, qazvin, Iran,. The 36-item Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire was used for data gathering. Descriptive statistics measures (frequency, mean, and SD) and inferential statistics (T test, Pearson correlation analysis) were used for data description and analysis. Results: There were significant differences among nurses of different units respecting the mean scores of strategies Acceptance (P = 0.002), Rumination (P = 0.001), Catastrophizing (P = 0.046), and Self-blame (P = 0.029). Age and work experience were correlated with acceptance and putting into perspective strategies while work experience was inversely correlated with rumination strategies. Conclusion: There are significant differences among the nurses of different critical care units respecting cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Qualitative studies and in-depth interviews are needed to determine factors behind nurses' use of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies.