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. 2022 Jun;57(3):315-324.
doi: 10.1002/ijop.12818. Epub 2021 Nov 7.

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological distress during lockdown due to COVID-19

Jose A Rodas  1   2 , Maria F Jara-Rizzo  1 , Ciara M Greene  2 , Rodrigo Moreta-Herrera  3   4 , Daniel Oleas  5
Affiliations

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological distress during lockdown due to COVID-19

Jose A Rodas et al. Int J Psychol. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Several governments have implemented strict measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, such as lockdown measures. However, these measures have brought negative consequences at an individual level by exacerbating the psychological distress caused by the pandemic. We evaluated the role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) on the levels of anxiety and depression during the lockdown in a sample of 663 Spanish-speaking adults, while controlling for variables related to social support, hobbies, seeking information related to COVID-19, perceived risk of infection, time of assessment, number of deaths and contagions during the assessment and age. Using multiple regression analyses with a stepwise model selection procedure, 29% of the variance in anxiety and 38% of the variance of depression were found to be predicted by specific CERS. The impact of CERS on anxiety and depression was moderated by the sex of participants and the time of assessment, indicating that CERS did not have the same protective or harmful effects in all participants and situations. Based on our results, recommendations are provided for improving coping with stressful events where lockdown measures are taken.

Keywords: Anxiety; COVID-19; Depression; Emotion regulation; Lockdown.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Slopes for age predicting anxiety depending on information seeking.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Slopes depicting interaction effects from cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) with group and sex on the prediction of anxiety and depression. (a) Slopes for Rumination depending on sex, (b) slopes for refocus on planning depending on sex, (c) slopes for other‐blame depending on sex, (d) slopes for positive reappraisal depending on sex, (e) slopes for catastrophising depending on sex, (f) slopes for other‐blame depending on sex, (g) slopes for self‐blame depending on group, (h) slopes for catastrophising depending on group, (i) slopes for other‐blame depending on group.
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