Pain Severity and Mental Health of Lifetime Trauma Exposed Young Adults: The Role of Emotion Dysregulation

Traumatic events are clinically significant experiences for young adults, associated with an increased risk of adverse mental health outcomes and poorer well-being. Little work has explored the underlying relationships of mental health problems in the context of pain in this population. Therefore, the present study sought to examine the role of emotion dysregulation and its sub-facets in the relation between individual differences in the severity of pain experienced and traumatic stress and anxiety/depressive symptoms in a sample of trauma-exposed young adults ( N = 566; 81.40% female, Mage = 21.37, SD = 2.84). Results revealed that individual differences in pain severity had a significant indirect effect on the indices of mental health of trauma-exposed young adults through emotion dysregulation. Findings are discussed in the context of developing specialized prevention and treatment programs targeting emotion regulation and its specific facets to improve the mental health of trauma-exposed young adults.