ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Moghanloo   M (*1)
Hosseini   S.M (2)






(*1) Psychology Departman, Humanistic Sciences Faculty, Robat Karim-Parand Center, Payam-e-Noor University, Tehran, Iran
(2) Psychology Departman, Humanistic Sciences Faculty, Saveh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Saveh, Iran

Correspondence

Article History

Received:  June  10, 2018
Accepted:  November 26, 2018
ePublished:  May 15, 2019

BRIEF TEXT


After the end of the war and the return of the warriors to the family, due to the stresses of the war and its devastating effect on the people's spirits, the adverse effects of war on the family, especially their wives, continue.

... [1-5]. Emotional empathy in couples is one of the effective factors in family sustainability. Empathy is the fundamental capacity of individuals to regulate relationships, support common activities and group cohesion. It plays a fundamental role in social life [6] and is a stimulant to social behaviors and behaviors that lead to team cohesion [6, 7]. ... [8-16]. Emotion regulation is a stage, in which individuals influence their excitement. The difficulty in emotion regulation should be the result of a lack of abilities and emotion regulation capabilities. The awareness and recognition of emotion regulation are considered as very important regulatory strategies. Many researchers emphasize the importance of the ability to accept and evaluate emotional responses [17]. ... [18-26].

The aim of this study was the prediction of emotional empathy by cognitive emotion regulation strategies and resilience in the wives of veterans.

This research is a descriptive-correlational study.

This research was done on 306 veterans’ spouses, who were referred to counseling center of the foundation of martyrs and veterans affairs in Robat Karim in 2016.

Morgan table was used for sampling and also according to the sample size of the statistical population (1500 people), the sample size considered 306 people. Simple random sampling method was done, by which the subjects were randomly selected from the list. The inclusion criteria included no history of neuropsychiatric disease and substance abuse, and the exclusion criteria included the death of the veteran and inability of the veteran spouse to continue to participate in the study.

In order to collect data, the following questionnaires were used: 1- Emotional empathy questionnaire: it was first developed by Laudis in 2009, including 33 items and measures the emotional responses of the individual to the emotional reactions of others on a 9-point Likert scale from totally disagree (score 1) to totally agree (score 9). Its reliability has been reported 0.71 in Iranian population [27]. In the studied sample in this study, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the internal consistency of the questionnaire was 0.76. 2- Garnefski’s cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire: this multidimensional questionnaire was developed by Garnefski et al. in 2001 as a self-report questionnaire, including 36 items and is available for both adults and children. In this research, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency for all components of the questionnaire obtained between 0.81 and 0.83, which indicates the validity of the components of the questionnaire. 3- Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC): It was developed by Connor and Davidson in 2003, by reviewing the studies on resilience through 1979-91. It should be noted that in this study, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency of the questionnaire obtained 0.81. The data were analyzed by SPSS 21, using Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis.

Those with associate degree were more responding. The wives veterans with 10% to 20% of injuries (general injuries) were most responding. In terms of income, 63.1% of the subjects had a monthly income from 2 to 3 million tomans (Table 1). There was a positive and significant correlation between positive strategies of emotional cognitive regulation (r=0.73) and resilience (r=0.99) with emotional empathy (p=0.001), but no significant difference was observed between negative strategies of cognitive emotional regulation and emotional empathy (p=0.418; Table 2).Among the predictor variables, only resilience and positive strategies of emotional cognitive regulation were able to positively and significantly predict emotional empathy in veterans' wives. In other words, the greater resilience of the veterans’ wives to cope with stress and the greater use of positive emotional regulation strategies can result in the higher levels of emotional empathy with their couples (Table 3).

According to the results, positive strategies of emotional regulation had a positive and significant correlation with emotional empathy in veterans' spouses, but there was no correlation between negative strategies for emotional regulation and emotional empathy. The results of this study are consistent with previous studies [11, 14]. The results of most studies, such as Gross [21] show that cognitive emotion regulation positive strategies are positively associated with problem-focused coping strategy and cognitive emotion regulation negative strategies are also correlated with emotion-focused coping strategy. The coping strategy is a set of cognitive, emotional and behavioral attempts of an individual that is used to modify, interpret, and modify the stressful situation to reduce the suffering associated with it. ... [28-29].

Designing an interventional study entitled "Effectiveness of emotional regulation training on increasing emotional empathy" using the control group is suggested to ensure the effectiveness of this research

Limited sample population was one of the limitations of this study.

Positive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and resilience can positively predict emotional empathy in veterans’ spouses.

The authors are grateful to the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs in Robat Karim for teir cooperation to perform the study as well as the veterans' wives due to their honesty and patience in answering questions.

None declared.

This research has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the foundation of martyrs and veterans affairs.

This study was not supported by any organization.

TABLES and CHARTS

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