Sociocultural Moderators of Emotion Regulation in Family Members of the Critically Ill.
Grant A Pignatiello, Stephanie Griggs, Ronald L Hickman
PMID 36154536WHAT IT FOUND
For ICU family members making decisions, changing how they thought about a situation was linked to less distress in White women but more distress in non-White men.
Suppressing emotions showed no clear link.
Key findings
01White surrogate decision makers reported lower cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression tendencies than non-White surrogate decision makers, but more psychological distress; men reported higher expressive suppression and less distress than women, with no gender difference in cognitive reappraisal.
02Cognitive reappraisal tendency was linked with less psychological distress overall, but race and gender changed that link: higher reappraisal was linked with more distress in non-White men and less distress in White women.
03Expressive suppression tendency was not significantly linked with psychological distress, and race and gender did not change that link.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Data were collected at one time point from one geographic location, so the study cannot show that emotion regulation causes distress or that distress changes emotion regulation. The sample was mostly White (76%) and mostly women (73%), and race was collapsed into White/non-White, so findings may not apply to more diverse groups or specific racial identities. The questionnaire measured general tendencies, not how people used these strategies in the ICU or what kinds of thoughts they generated. The analysis did not account for provider background, family control preferences, or race-related stress, which may influence distress and emotion regulation.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not include a conflicts-of-interest declaration. The publication types list NIH extramural research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that teaching cognitive reappraisal will reduce distress in all surrogate decision makers. The study measured tendencies at one time point, not an intervention, and found the link differed by race and gender, including more distress among non-White men with higher reappraisal tendency.