The sequential mediating roles of psychological flexibility and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation between illness perception and fear of cancer recurrence in gastrointestinal cancer patients

Psychological flexibility and MCER sequentially mediate the relationship between illness perception and FCR. These findings underscore the need to integrate cognitive-restructuring and psychological flexibility-enhancing techniques into clinical interventions for FCR reduction. Longitudinal designs and multi-center samples are warranted to strengthen generalizability.