The Effect of Emotion Regulation Training on Improving the Quality of Life and Life Expectancy of Cardiovascular Patients Referring to Health Centers in 2023

Introduction: The main consequence of heart failure is a decline in patients' functional abilities, leading to limitations in occupational and social-family tasks, as well as impairments in cognitive and emotional health, ultimately resulting in a reduced quality of life. This research was conducted to assess the effectiveness of emotion regulation training in improving the quality of life and life expectancy of cardiovascular patients referred to health centers in Khorram Abad City. Methods: The current research used a semi-experimental design of pre-test-post-test type and three-month follow-up with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the research included all patients with cardiovascular diseases referred to the health centers of Khorram Abad City in 2023. Among the statistical population, 40 people were selected by direct sampling and randomly divided into two experimental (20 people) and control (20 people) groups. The experimental group was trained in emotion regulation during eight 90-minute sessions for 8 weeks. Both groups completed the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHO-QOL-BREF) and Schneider et al.'s (1991) Life Expectancy Questionnaire in the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The multivariate covariance analysis method and Bonferroni post hoc test were used to analyze the results. Results: The results showed that emotional regulation training is efficacious in improving the quality of life and life expectancy of cardiovascular patients (P < 0.01), and this effect remained stable in the three-month follow-up phase (P < 0.01). Conclusions: Emotion regulation training is recommended to enhance cardiovascular patients' quality of life and life expectancy.