Abstract
BackgroundThe loss of one’s job has been conceptualized as a major stressful life event in an adult’s life and has consistently been associated with lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies after the experience of stressful events has emerged as an important predictor of adverse psychological and health outcomes. However, the effect of these coping strategies on the HRQoL of unemployed people has not been examined until now. We aimed to study the associations of these cognitive emotion regulation strategies on HRQoL of unemployed people.MethodsUsing cross-sectional data, 1,125 unemployed adults were assessed using a Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for cognitive coping and SF-12 to assess HRQoL. We studied the effect of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on mental and physical health composite separately, adjusting for gender, age, educational level and length of unemployment, using hierarchical regression analyses.ResultsResults showed unemployed men tended to express greater use of self-blame, other-blame, and catastrophizing, and lower use of perspective taking strategies when confronted with unemployment. Moreover, self-blame (for mental health composite only), blaming others, rumination, and catastrophizing negatively correlated, while positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, planning, and positive refocusing positively correlated with both mental and physical health composite in unemployed people. Further hierarchical regression analyses indicate that five strategies (a lower reported use of self-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing, as well as higher scores of positive reappraisal and positive refocusing) and three strategies (lower scores of catastrophizing and rumination and high scores in planning) have significant and independent contributions, beyond gender, age, educational level and length of unemployment, to the prediction of mental health and physical health composite, respectively.ConclusionsCognitive emotion regulation strategies appeared to be significantly correlated with HRQoL in unemployed people. Our findings suggest the potential value of including assistance programs focused on cognitive emotion regulation strategies to complement current psychosocial and health approaches aimed at preserving or improving unemployed people’s HRQoL.
Highlights
The loss of one’s job has been conceptualized as a major stressful life event in an adult’s life and has consistently been associated with lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL)
Partial correlation analyses we examined the partial correlations among cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and mental and physical quality of life scores from 12-Item short form survey (SF-12) adjusting for gender
Since these coping strategies tend to be amenable to a psychosocial approach and might thereby increase quality of life for the unemployed, a program of further interventions aimed at teaching problem solving skills in job seeking and improving HRQoL in unemployed men should aim to modify certain maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies
Summary
The loss of one’s job has been conceptualized as a major stressful life event in an adult’s life and has consistently been associated with lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The change in social status, time-structure, disruptions in both work and family roles, loss of selfconcept and identity, decreasing social contacts, subsequent financial deprivation, and uncertainty about the future have been attributed to be possible sources of pervasive adverse consequences for health-related quality of life (HRQoL) [8]. In this respect, identifying psychosocial moderator variables within a stressful life event perspective, that either protect people or place them at greater risk for the consequences of job loss, remains an important focus for both career counsellors and social researchers [9]. The style of coping that unemployed people use to deal with psychological distress during unemployment seems to be associated, to some degree, with their levels of physical and mental health [12]
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