The mediation role of the child's emotion regulation skill in the relationship between the mother's illness anxiety and the child's illness anxiety

This research was conducted to examine the mediating effect of the child's emotion regulation skills on the relationship between the mother's and the child's illness anxiety. In addition the differences between groups were examined in terms of sociodemographic characteristics. The research was conducted with 229 children between the ages of 10-15 and their mothers. Mothers participating in the study completed the sociodemographic information form and the Scale for the Assessment of Illness Behaviour (SAIB); the children completed the Childhood Illness Attitude Scales (CIAS) and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA). According to the data obtained from the research; it was observed that the mediating effect of suppression and cognitive reappraisal strategies, which are among the emotion regulation strategies used by the child, was not significant in the relationship between mother's and child illness anxiety. A weak positive correlation was found between mother's and child's illness anxiety; between the cognitive reappraisal and the suppression strategy; between child's illness anxiety and the suppression strategy. It has been observed that mother's illness anxiety varies significantly according to the child's school success, income level and mother's education level, whereas child illness anxiety varies significantly according to the child's gender, school success and the mother's education level. It has been observed that the child's use of cognitive reappraisal strategy varies significantly according to the child's number of siblings, school success and the mother's marital status, whereas the use of suppression varies significantly according to the child's age, grade, income level and mother's education level. As a result, it has been observed that children's illness anxiety is related to mother's illness anxiety. It is thought that this study will be one of the pioneering studies on children's illness anxiety in the Turkish sample and will contribute to cultural explanations of emotion regulation strategies.