Emotion Regulation Difficulties and Social Cognitions Predicting PTSD Severity and Quality of Life Among Treatment Seeking Combat Veterans

Abstract

The current study was conducted to increase understanding of how emotion dysregulation influences postcombat functioning. We hypothesized that more severe difficulties with emotion regulation would relate to worse postcombat adaptation (measured via posttraumatic stress symptom [PTS] severity and quality of life [QOL]) through negative influence on postcombat worldview and coping self-efficacy. Participants included 123 combat veterans referred for assessment and/or treatment in an outpatient mental health clinic in a Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Hypotheses were tested via path analysis, yielding metrics for model fit, direct effects, and hypothesized indirect effects (estimated via bootstrapping re-sampling). Findings demonstrated good fitting models that produced large effect sizes in the explanation of PTS severity (R2 = .49) and quality of life (R2 = .42). Findings across both models showed that emotion regulation difficulties did not have a direct relationship with PTS severity or QOL. However, higher levels of emotion dysregulation were indirected related to higher PTS severity and lower QOL, through more severe negative postcombat worldview and lower coping self-efficacy appraisals. Future research and intervention implications are discussed, including the need for research and intervention focusing on social-cognitive-affective mechanisms in the process of promoting recovery from trauma and quality life among veterans.