Psychological distress and cognitive emotion regulation strategies among farmers who fell victim to the foot-and-mouth crisis

Abstract

This study focused on the relationship between the use of specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological distress among 288 farmers who had fallen victim to the foot-and-mouth crisis in The Netherlands. The specific cognitive strategies they used to handle the crisis were measured by the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). Relationships were studied by means of Pearson correlations, multiple regression analyses and structural equation modelling. Positive relationships were found between psychological distress and self-blame, other-blame, rumination and planning. Negative relationships were found between psychological distress and positive refocusing and positive reappraisal. The results suggest that cognitive emotion regulation strategies may be a useful target for intervention.