The Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Intervention on Alexithymia and cognitive emotion regulation strategies with in patients with coronary heart disease

The Unified treatment approach (UP), an emotion-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy that holds emotional processes as a central target of treatment, is applicable for disorders with strong emotional components. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of emotion regulation intervention derivative from the UP on emotional problems and cognitive emotion regulation strategies among patients with coronary heart disease. The study was a randomized clinical trial. The study population included all patients with coronary heart disease referred to Tehran Heart Center between June and July in 2016. Of these 70 patients, including 30 patients were selected using convenience sampling method. To collect data, Alexithymia Toronto scale, and cognitive emotion regulation strategies questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and covariance analysis.
The findings suggest that insecure attachment style, and avoidance positive, and also secure attachment style has negative relationship with alexithymia. And there is significant negative relationship between positive cognitive emotion regulation with alexithymia and significant positive relationship between negative cognitive set with alexithymia. The regression results also showed that attachment styles, cognitive emotion regulation strategies predicted alexithymia in patients. The results can researchers and therapists area of alexithymia on the factors influencing it helpful.