Clinical trial NCT06766682: Emotion Regulation Skill Program: Impact on Emotion Regulation, Experiential Avoidance & Compassion Fatigue
Official title: The Effect of Skill Development Program for Emotion Regulation on Emotion Regulation, Experiential Avoidance and Compassion Fatigue of Oncology Nurses
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Compassion Fatigue
Experiential Avoidance
Emotion Regulation Abilities
Emotion Regulation
Keywords: oncology nursing
difficulty in emotion regulation
emotion regulation skill
experiential avoidance
compassion fatigue
Lead sponsor: Hacettepe University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2025-01-09
Enrollment: 66
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: In this study, the effects of the skills development program for regulating emotions applied to oncology nurses on oncology nurses' emotion regulation, experiential avoidance, and comorbidity fatigue will be examined. The research will be conducted as a randomized controlled experimental study with pretest-posttest and follow-up design.

Detailed description: Cancer has profound emotional, psychological, and behavioral impacts on patients and caregivers. Oncology nurses, while providing care, often experience feelings of helplessness, sadness, anxiety, and anger. Shift work-induced insomnia and irregular living patterns can impair emotional regulation, negatively affecting nurses' ability to provide holistic care, make effective decisions, and maintain professional interactions. Emotional recognition and management skills are critical for nurses engaged in long-term care processes. Emotional regulation involves identifying, understanding, and managing emotional responses, encompassing awareness, appropriate management, and expression. Ineffective emotional regulation may lead to difficulties in coping with emotional challenges and increase the risk of developing disorders such as depression and anxiety.

The literature highlights that emotional regulation strategies, which involve specific skills to modify emotional experiences, play a significant role in the development of various psychopathological disorders and affect mental health. Maladaptive strategies such as experiential avoidance-defined as avoiding situations or thoughts to escape distressing emotions-have been linked to increased risks of anxiety, depression, and burnout. Effective emotional regulation strategies are crucial for maintaining mental health and influencing behaviors. Increased experiential avoidance among healthcare workers has been associated with higher levels of burnout.

Empathy is a cornerstone of psychosocial care for patients and their families in oncology clinics. However, failure to regulate emotions during empathetic interactions can result in compassion fatigue, characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion, anger, disengagement, reduced job performance, and patient dissatisfaction. Effective emotional regulation supports the delivery of empathetic care and protects the psychosocial well-being of nurses. Emotional regulation enhances individuals' emotional awareness and enables more conscious and controlled management of emotions. This study aims to investigate the impact of an emotional regulation skills development program on oncology nurses' emotional regulation difficulties, experiential avoidance, and compassion fatigue in challenging work environments.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Volunteering to participate in the research
* Working in the specified units for at least six months
* Not having a disease or disability would make it difficult for them to understand the program and data collection tools and to apply the skills.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Having received or currently receiving individual or group psychotherapy/counseling program within the last six months
* Requesting to withdraw from the study at any stage of the research
* Regularly missing two consecutive group sessions
* Failure to attend three or more sessions in total

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form
timeFrame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change in the Emotion Regulation Skills Scale
timeFrame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)
Other outcomes:
measure: Change in the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Scale-30
timeFrame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)
measure: Change in the Compassion Fatigue Short Scale
timeFrame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)
measure: Participant Information Form
timeFrame: Time Frame: baseline
Locations:
city: Ankara
country: Turkey
facility: Hacettepe University
Study officials:
affiliation: Hacettepe University
name: DUYGU HİÇDURMAZ, Professor
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
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