The Mediation Role of Psychological Hardiness between Emotional Self-regulation and Stress Management in Breast Cancer Patients

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in both developed and developing countries. It may cause several problems regarding physical, psychological, and social aspects. Cognitive emotion self-regulation is key factor in coping with these issues. This study is aimed to assess the mediating role of psychological hardiness between emotional self-regulation and stress management in breast cancer patients.

Method: Current study is a cross-sectional study. Study society included women with breast cancer referring to shiraz governmental hospitals including Namazi, Shahid Faghihi and Bualisina Hospitals from which 120 individuals fulfilling inclusion criteria were enrolled in this study. This investigation is a descriptive-correlation study in which three questionnaires (psychological hardiness, emotional self-regulation and stress management) were used for data collection. Data was analyzed using statistical methods such as Pearson correlation coefficient and regression using SPSS ver. 24 software.

Results: Mean age of participants was 45 years in this study (81.7%). Results of regression test revealed a significant relationship between cognitive emotional self-regulation with stress management and cognitive hardiness (P<0.001). Regression results showed that cognitive emotional self-regulation explains 17% and 15% of all changes in cognitive hardiness and stress management.

Conclusion: Results of this study showed that emotional regulation (disorder in emotional regulation) can directly affect stress management ability. Moreover, increased emotional regulation disorder, reduced psychologic hardiness. Thus, emotional self-regulation can affect quality of life of these patients and improve their ability to cope with cancer-derived challenges.