Prediction of health anxiety based on experiential avoidance and self-compassion with mediation of emotion regulation difficulty in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder

Authors
Marziehsadat Hejazi 1
Roya Mashak 2
1 Kashan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kashan, Iran
2 Shahid Ashrafi Esfahani University, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
The aim of the study was to predict health anxiety based on experiential avoidance and self-compassion with the mediation of emotion regulation difficulty in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder. The research method was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population was mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder in Isfahan province from 1403 to 11402, of which 250 people were selected by convenience sampling. The collection tools were Salkoskis and Warwick's health anxiety (2002), experiential avoidance Bond et al. (2011), self-compassion Reis et al. (2011), and Gratz and Roemer's emotion regulation difficulty (2004). The results were analyzed using path analysis and SPSS26 and AMOS18 software. The findings showed that health anxiety on experiential avoidance, health anxiety on self-compassion, health anxiety on emotion regulation difficulty, experiential avoidance on emotion regulation difficulty, self-compassion on emotion regulation difficulty have a significant relationship, and health anxiety based on experiential avoidance has a significant relationship with the mediation of emotion regulation difficulty, and health anxiety based on self-compassion has a significant relationship with the mediation of emotion regulation difficulty. As a result, the research can help provide more targeted and effective interventions to reduce health anxiety in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder.
Keywords
Health Anxiety
Experiential Avoidance
Self-Compassion
emotion regulation difficulty
mothers
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