Emotion regulation, self-efficacy, disease severity, and psychological adjustment in patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

Objective: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients have been found to experience less self-efficacy and use more maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (ERS), which in turn have frequently been shown to lead to lowered psychological adjustment. Also, there is inconsistent evidence whether usage of ERS may alter in dependency of disease severity. This study aimed to investigate if disease severity and self-efficacy mediate the relation between ERS and psychological adjustment. Design: A sample of 106 IDB patients completed an online questionnaire assessing psychological adjustment, adaptive and maladaptive ERS, disease severity, and self-efficacy. Results: Multiple regression analyses revealed that self-efficacy and adaptive and maladaptive ERS, but not disease severity predicted psychological adjustment. Self-efficacy fully mediated the correlation between adaptive ERS and psychological adjustment and partially mediated the correlation between maladaptive ERS and psychological adjustment. Conclusion: The results are in line with previous findings and highlight the role of self-efficacy as a key variable for improvement of psychological adjustment in patients with IBD, regardless of actual disease severity.