Predicting COVID-19 Anxiety Based on Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies and Demographic Components

Abstract

Investigating the behavior, thinking, and emotional reactions of people in crises will be a valuable help in reducing and preventing injuries in various aspects of life, especially the psychological dimension. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and COVID-19-Related Anxiety. For this purpose, 305 individuals (age: M = 34.6, SD = 9.04) in Markazi province, Iran participated in the study through online recall, they were asked to respond to the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Styles Questionnaire (Garnefski and Kraj, 2006) and the Corona Disease Anxiety Scale (Alipour et al., 2020). The results of multivariate regression analysis in this study showed that the adaptive emotional regulation strategies (positive refocusing, planning, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, and acceptance) and maladaptive strategies (self-blame, other- blame, rumination, catastrophizing) significantly predict the physical and psychological symptoms of Corona-Related Anxiety (p <0.05). Also, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, education level, and gender can explain 25% of psychological symptoms and 24% of physical symptoms of Corona-Related Anxiety changes. In general, it could say that crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic affect the mental health of people in society. And the amount of damage in emotional dimensions such as anxiety is affected by people's emotional regulation style, age, and education level.

Keywords

• covid-19-related anxiety
• cognitive emotion regulation
• crisis