Emotion Regulation Skill Program: Impact on Emotion Regulation, Experiential Avoidance & Compassion Fatigue

Not Applicable

Not yet recruiting

• Conditions: Compassion Fatigue; Emotion Regulation Abilities; Emotion Regulation; Experiential Avoidance

• Registration Number: NCT06766682
• Lead Sponsor: Hacettepe University

Brief Summary

In this study, the effects of the skills development program for regulating emotions applied to oncology nurses on oncology nurses' emotion regulation, experiential avoidance, and comorbidity fatigue will be examined. The research will be conducted as a randomized controlled experimental study with pretest-posttest and follow-up design.

Detailed Description

Cancer has profound emotional, psychological, and behavioral impacts on patients and caregivers. Oncology nurses, while providing care, often experience feelings of helplessness, sadness, anxiety, and anger. Shift work-induced insomnia and irregular living patterns can impair emotional regulation, negatively affecting nurses' ability to provide holistic care, make effective decisions, and maintain professional interactions. Emotional recognition and management skills are critical for nurses engaged in long-term care processes. Emotional regulation involves identifying, understanding, and managing emotional responses, encompassing awareness, appropriate management, and expression. Ineffective emotional regulation may lead to difficulties in coping with emotional challenges and increase the risk of developing disorders such as depression and anxiety.

The literature highlights that emotional regulation strategies, which involve specific skills to modify emotional experiences, play a significant role in the development of various psychopathological disorders and affect mental health. Maladaptive strategies such as experiential avoidance-defined as avoiding situations or thoughts to escape distressing emotions-have been linked to increased risks of anxiety, depression, and burnout. Effective emotional regulation strategies are crucial for maintaining mental health and influencing behaviors. Increased experiential avoidance among healthcare workers has been associated with higher levels of burnout.

Empathy is a cornerstone of psychosocial care for patients and their families in oncology clinics. However, failure to regulate emotions during empathetic interactions can result in compassion fatigue, characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion, anger, disengagement, reduced job performance, and patient dissatisfaction. Effective emotional regulation supports the delivery of empathetic care and protects the psychosocial well-being of nurses. Emotional regulation enhances individuals' emotional awareness and enables more conscious and controlled management of emotions. This study aims to investigate the impact of an emotional regulation skills development program on oncology nurses' emotional regulation difficulties, experiential avoidance, and compassion fatigue in challenging work environments.

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2025-01
• Study First Submitted: 2025-01-05
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-01-05
• Study First Posted: 2025-01-09
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-01-09
• Last Update Posted: 2025-01-13
• Study Start: 2025-03-03
• Primary Completion: 2025-05-02
• Study Completion: 2025-08-02

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 66

Inclusion Criteria

• Volunteering to participate in the research
• Working in the specified units for at least six months
• Not having a disease or disability would make it difficult for them to understand the program and data collection tools and to apply the skills.

Exclusion Criteria

• Having received or currently receiving individual or group psychotherapy/counseling program within the last six months
• Requesting to withdraw from the study at any stage of the research
• Regularly missing two consecutive group sessions
• Failure to attend three or more sessions in total

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form	[Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)	Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form consists of 16 items and 5 sub-dimensions in 5-point Likert type (1=almost never, 5=almost always). It has five sub-dimensions: Clarity, Goals, Impulse, Strategies, and Non-Acceptance. A minimum score of 16 points and a maximum score of 80 points can be obtained from the scale and high scores obtained from the sub-dimensions and total score of the scale indicate that emotion regulation difficulties are high.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in the Emotion Regulation Skills Scale	[Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)	The Emotion Regulation Skills Scale is a five-point Likert-type (1=almost never, 5=almost always) self-report instrument consisting of 27 items and nine subscales. The sub-dimensions are Awareness/attention, Body sensations, Clarity, Understanding, Acceptance, Tolerance, Preparation for confrontation, Self-support, and Modification. The minimum score that can be obtained from the scale is 27 and the maximum score is 135. The scale can be evaluated on the total score and the average of the sub-dimension scores

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Hacettepe University; 🇹🇷 Ankara, Turkey