Date Presented 3/31/2017
People with difficulties in regulating their emotions experienced reduced quality of life, including satisfaction with daily performance, in this study. The importance of emotion regulation skills in understanding health and wellness should be emphasized in occupational theory and practice.
Primary Author and Speaker: Karen Hebert
PURPOSE: Quality of life is a broad phenomenon that is recognized by the World Health Organization (2005) as being of fundamental importance in understanding human health. The concept of quality of life is multidimensional and includes psychosocial conditions such as chronic pain, fatigue, and depression as well as general satisfaction with life performance. Occupational therapists have long considered the impact of motor, sensory, and cognitive impairments as well as contextual factors on an individual’s quality of life. An emerging area of importance for occupational therapists studying adult performance is the role of emotion regulation skills in health outcomes. Emotion regulation skills include awareness and acceptance of emotions as well as the ability to flexibly use strategies to meet individualized goals (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Because emotion regulation abilities vary across individuals and affect engagement with the environment, it is expected that these performance skills are related to health outcome measures including quality of life. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between emotion regulation skills and several quality of life measures in a community-based sample of healthy adults.
DESIGN: This descriptive study included 141 healthy community-dwelling adults (age range = 18–69; 98 female, 43 male). Participants were recruited by flyers and word of mouth in a small Midwestern college town. Individuals with a diagnosis of a neurological or psychological condition were excluded due to this study’s focus on emotion regulation skills as part of normal health and wellness.
METHOD: Participants completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and three measures of quality of life (Fatigue Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and a 10-question survey about satisfaction with performance of daily activities) in a 1-hr session. Pearson’s correlations were used to examine the relationships between emotion regulation and quality of life measures.
RESULTS: Individuals with difficulties in emotion regulation experienced lower quality of life. In particular, they reported more fatigue (r = .377, p < .001), less overall satisfaction with life (r = –.383, p < .001), and less satisfaction with performance of daily activities (r = –.219, p < .01).
CONCLUSION: Use of quality of life measures, including satisfaction with performance of daily activities, is an important client-centered way for occupational therapists to understand health across individuals (AOTA, 2014). This study suggests that individuals who have difficulties in using emotion regulation skills experience less satisfaction with their performance in life. In addition, these individuals are more likely to report feeling physically and cognitively fatigued. It is plausible that individuals who have difficulties with emotion regulation must devote more cognitive resources to using these skills, resulting in feelings of fatigue when completing activities.
The finding that emotion regulation skills are related to quality of life suggests that understanding this performance skill is important for theory related to occupational engagement and health and wellness. In addition, intervention strategies that promote regulation of emotions during psychosocial and occupational engagement should be considered as part of occupational therapists’ tool kit when working with a range of adult clients.
References
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2014). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process (3rd ed.). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 68(Suppl. 1), S1–S48. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2014.682006
Gratz, K. L., & Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation: Development, factor structure, and initial validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 26, 41–54. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOBA.0000007455.08539.94
World Health Organization. (2005). The World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment (WHOQOL): Position paper from the World Health Organization. Social Science and Medicine, 41, 1403–1409. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00112-K
