The moderating effect of emotional regulation strategies in the relationship between emotional experiences and physical health of college students

Abstract

Objective To explore the role of college students' emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between emotion experiences and physical health. Method A total of 2 000 college students from a college in Hebei Province were tested randomly with the depression anxiety stress scale-21 (DASS-21), the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ) and the EuroQoL five-dimension questionnaire(EQ-5D). Results (1) Depression, anxiety and stress and expression suppression of male students (1(0, 5), 1(0, 6), 2(0, 7), 16.61±5.34, respectively)were higher than those of females(0(0, 2), 1(0, 3), 1(0, 4), 15.68±5.10, respectively)(Z=-6.162, -3.108, -2.846, t=3.814, P<0.01); and cognitive reappraisal, visual analogue scales (EQ-VAS) and EQ-5D value indexes(EQ-5D) of male students(27.74±7.56, 81.17±18.29, 0.94±0.15, respectively)were lower than those of females(28.69±6.34, 84.23±16.43, 0.96±0.11, respectively)(t=-2.967, -3.812, -3.837, P<0.01). (2)The scores of depression, anxiety and stress were positively correlated with expression suppression(r=0.096, 0.080, 0.066, P<0.01) , and negatively correlated with cognitive reappraisal(r=-0.176, -0.160, -0.174, P<0.01) and EQ-VAS (r=-0.410, -0.437, -0.422, P<0.01). (3) Cognitive reappraisal played a moderating role in the effect of stress on physical health (R2=0.191, P<0.01); and expression inhibition exerted a positive moderating role in that of depression on physical health (R2=0.163, P<0.01). Conclusion College students' emotion regulation strategies play a moderating role in the effect of emotional state on physical health. Key words: Emotions; Physical health; Cognitive reappraisal; Expression suppression; Moderating effect; College students