Mediator role of the cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the effect of childhood traumatic experiences in impulsivity

Traumatic experiences affect psychological health at behavioral, emotional and cognitive levels. It is known that these experiences increase the risk of psychiatric diseases in adulthood. Impulsivity is both an outcome of the trauma and a risk factor for occurring of a psychopathology related with trauma. Emotion regulation difficulties is another important factor which is known effective in in the psychological health and is also found in diagnosis criteria of several psychopathologies. This study's main objective is to research the mediator role of the cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the effect of childhood traumatic experiences in impulsivity. Study sample consisted of 301 participants who had childhood traumatic experience. The study data was collected with Personal Demographic Information Form, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-28) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear hierarchical regression were used for the analysis of the correlation between variables. The results of the study show that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies can have a partial mediator role on the effect of emotional and sexual abuse in impulsivity. Adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies are not a mediator in the relationship between childhood trauma and impulsivity. Physical abuse and emotional neglect are found to be related strongly on the adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in negative manner. Additionally, multiple linear hierarchical regression analysis showed physical abuse and emotional neglect negatively affect adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. The results were discussed in the light of literature.