Quality of life, emotion regulation, and dissociation: Evaluating unique relations in an undergraduate sample and probable PTSD subsample.

Objective: Previous research has documented a strong association between emotion regulation (ER) and quality of life (QoL). Nevertheless, extant studies have not tested this association in participants meeting diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder nor accounted for other explanatory variables statistically. Our primary objective was to evaluate the unique relations among ER dimensions and QoL while controlling for dissociation, neuroticism, and PTSD symptoms statistically. Our secondary aim was to test the hypothesis that the correlation between PTSD symptoms and dissociation will be greater in a sample with clinically elevated PTSD compared with a nonclinical sample.

Method: Data were collected from an unselected undergraduate sample (N = 502) and a subsample of participants with probable PTSD (N = 53) using self-report measures.

Results: Analyses revealed that increased general emotional dysregulation, dissociation, PTSD symptoms, blaming others, neuroticism, and impulsivity were uniquely related to poor QoL in the overall sample whereas increased dissociation, impulsivity, and blaming others were uniquely related to poor QoL in the probable PTSD subsample. We found evidence for a moderate correlation between PTSD symptoms and dissociation in the probable PTSD subsample, but this correlation was not significantly greater than the correlation between the two variables in the overall sample.

Conclusions: ER dimensions (e.g., dissociation, blaming others, impulsivity) may represent novel treatment targets for tailored psychosocial interventions promoting QoL in the general population and individuals with PTSD. Future longitudinal studies with a larger trauma-exposed sample are necessary to replicate and extend our findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).