The role of Cognitive Avoidance, Meta-cognitive Beliefs and Cognitive Failures in Predicting the State-Trait Anxiety in Nurses

Anxiety disorders are conditions with the similar feature of extreme fear and anxiety and related behavioral disturbances. This study aimed to evaluate the role of cognitive avoidance, metacognitive beliefs, and cognitive failures in prediction the state-trait anxiety in nurses. This descriptive and correlational research was performed on 100 nurses working in hospitals of Tabriz, Iran in 2018. The research tools included cognitive avoidance questionnaire, metacognitive beliefs questionnaire, cognitive failures questionnaire, and Spielberger anxiety inventory. Moreover, data analysis was performed in SPSS version 24 using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression model. In this study, while there was a negative and significant relationship between the anxiety state of nurses and cognitive avoidance (P=0.01), no significant association was found between the mentioned state and variables of metacognitive beliefs and cognitive failures. Furthermore, a negative and significant correlation was observed between anxiety trait of nurses and cognitive avoidance (P=0.01). However, no significant association was found between the mentioned trait and variables of metacognitive beliefs and cognitive failures. Regression results demonstrated that the predictive variables determined 37% of the total variance of anxiety state and 33% of the variance of anxiety trait. Given the important role of nurses in the improvement and promotion of health of society members, eliminating the stress-causing factors in nurses, especially cognitive avoidance which had a significant relationship with state-trait anxiety of nurses, must be recognized as a health priority.