Health anxiety and emotion regulation during the period of COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Background: The process of COVID-19 outbreak has affected Turkey as it has affected the whole world. The purpose of the current study is to investigate individuals' health anxiety and emotion regulation during the period of COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey in relation to some variables. The study also aims to explore the relationship between emotion regulation and health anxiety. Subjects and methods: The study was conducted on 874 individuals reached online through the google e-forms. The participants were administered the "Health Anxiety Scale and Emotion Regulation Scale" to collect data. In the analysis of the collected data, Mann- Whitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis-H Test, Spearman Correlation Coefficient were used. Results: In the current study, healthy anxiety scores of the participants were analyzed depending on some variables. Health anxiety was found to be higher in women, 18-30 age group, singles, students, and groups with physical and mental health problems. The research also found that there is a low and negative relationship between health anxiety and cognitive reappraisal. It is understood that men's suppression scores are higher than women. There is no significant difference between suppressing emotions and health anxiety. It was found that educators received the highest scores in terms of cognitive reappraisal. The cognitive reappraisal level of the group without mental disorder was found to be higher than the other group. Conclusion: According to the results of the research, more supportive services should be provided for the groups with the higher health anxiety. Considering that especially students and young people are affected more, it can be said that mental health preventive services should be included more in these groups. At the same time, the fact that men have higher emotion suppression scores than women shows that this situation should also be taken into consideration in mental health services. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)