Salman Shahzad
S. Shahzad. University of Karachi, Pakistan.
Background: Pakistan has a significant problems related to substance use. According to UNODC (2013), in Pakistan 6.7 million people used drugs in the previous year, with 4.25 million people dependent on drugs. High numbers of people with substance use disorders (SUDs) have common co-occurring mental health problems. Emotion regulation plays an important role in mental health problems. Inability to regulate emotion could be one of risk factor for substance use; however, there are limited empirical studies to determine the association of cognitive and emotion regulation strategies with mental health problems in people with SUDs in Pakistan. Present study aims to determine the psychometric properties of the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire in sample of patients with substance use disorders. From prevention and treatment perspective, these findings use to develop evidenced based intervention centered on fostering adaptive emotion regulation skills to reduce the risk of substance use as well as improve their mental health and wellbeing.
Method: Male participants (N = 237) ages between 16-50 years (M= 29.74 years, SD = 8.08) were recruited from substance use treatment centers and hospitals situated in Karachi. Participants completed demographic information, The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven, 2002), the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DAAS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) and Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) in Urdu.
Results: Reliability of the Urdu version of The CERQ inferred by cronbach’s alpha and test retest reliability. The cronbach alpha for the CERQ total (cronbach alpha = .80) is adequate. Similarly, cronbach alpha for subscales i.e., Self blame, (cronbach alpha =.76) acceptance (cronbach alpha =.78), rumination (cronbach alpha =.72), positive refocusing (cronbach alpha =.79), focus on planning (cronbach alpha =.89), positive reappraisal (cronbach alpha =.81) putting into perspective (cronbach alpha =.83) catastrophizing (cronbach alpha =.73) other blame (cronbach alpha =.70), test retest reliability of The CERQ is (.89). Both DAAS total (Cronbach alpha = .92) and RSES (Cronbach alpha = .90) had adequate internal consistency. Further, cronbach alpha for subscales (depression = .88, anxiety = .90, stress = .82) is also adequate. Higher level of cognitive emotion regulation strategies are significantly negatively associated with depression, anxiety and stress (r = -.258, p < .001) and positively associated with self esteem (r = .298, p < .001).
Conclusion: The Urdu version of CERQ is a reliable measure for investigating cognitive emotion regulation strategies related to mental health and SUDs in Pakistan. Keywords: Cognitive Emotion Regulation, self esteem, substance use, depression, anxiety, stress
*Accepted for the 2020 NIDA International Poster Session at the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) conference.