Survey study of the intermediary role of emotion regulation difficulties and distress tolerance in the relationship between substance dependence and impulsivity

The aim of this study is to survey the intermediary role of emotion regulation difficulties and distress tolerance in the relationship between substance dependence and impulsivity. Addiction Profile Index (API) Short Form, Barratt Impulsivity Scale Short Form (BIS-11-SF), Stroop Test Çapa Form, Emotion Regulation Difficulties Scale Short Form (DERS-SF), Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) and Sociodemographic Information Form were used to measure data. In the analysis of the research data, the kurtosis and skewness parameters for the normal distribution were examined and it was determined that they showed a normal distribution since these parameters were in the reference range of -3 and +3. The relationship between the scores obtained from the scales was measured with the Pearson Correlation test. The effect of the intermediary role was examined by using the SPSS plugin Process Macro regression analysis. It was found that the scores obtained from the DERS-SF (partial mediation effect β=.17, p<.05) and DTS (partial mediation effect β=.11, p<.05) tests have a mediating role in the relationship between substance dependence and impulsivity, which is the main hypothesis of the study. Between the levels of dependency and impulsivity, positively moderate (r=.50, p<.01 for BIS-11-SF, and r=.42, p<.01 for Stroop D), between the levels of emotional regulation difficulties and dependency, positively moderate (r=.37, p<.01) between the levels of distress tolerance and dependency, negatively weak (r=-.24, p<.05) between the levels of impulsivity and distress tolerance, negatively strong and moderate (r=-.59, p<.01 for BIS-11-SF, and r=-.33, p<.01 for Stroop D), between the levels of impulsivity and emotion regulation difficulties, positively strong and weak (r=.58, p<.01 for BIS-11-SF and r=.20 p<.05 for Stroop D) correlations was determined. The correlation between BIS-11-SF and Stroop D, which was used to assess impulsivity, was found to be positively moderate (r=.49, p<.01).