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NCT Number: NCT06766682

Emotion Regulation Skill Program: Impact on Emotion Regulation, Experiential Avoidance & Compassion Fatigue

In this study, the effects of the skills development program for regulating emotions applied to oncology nurses on oncology nurses' emotion regulation, experiential avoidance, and comorbidity fatigue will be examined. The research will be conducted as a randomized controlled experimental study with pretest-posttest and follow-up design.

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Key information

Conditions

Compassion Fatigue Behavior Behavioral Symptoms Emotion Regulation Emotion Regulation Abilities Emotional Regulation Experiential Avoidance Fatigue Mental Fatigue Occupational Stress Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms Self-Control Signs and Symptoms Social Behavior Stress, Psychological

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Hacettepe University

Ankara, 06100, Turkey (Türkiye)

About this study

Cancer has profound emotional, psychological, and behavioral impacts on patients and caregivers. Oncology nurses, while providing care, often experience feelings of helplessness, sadness, anxiety, and anger. Shift work-induced insomnia and irregular living patterns can impair emotional regulation, negatively affecting nurses' ability to provide holistic care, make effective decisions, and maintain professional interactions. Emotional recognition and management skills are critical for nurses engaged in long-term care processes. Emotional regulation involves identifying, understanding, and managing emotional responses, encompassing awareness, appropriate management, and expression. Ineffective emotional regulation may lead to difficulties in coping with emotional challenges and increase the risk of developing disorders such as depression and anxiety.

The literature highlights that emotional regulation strategies, which involve specific skills to modify emotional experiences, play a significant role in the development of various psychopathological disorders and affect mental health. Maladaptive strategies such as experiential avoidance-defined as avoiding situations or thoughts to escape distressing emotions-have been linked to increased risks of anxiety, depression, and burnout. Effective emotional regulation strategies are crucial for maintaining mental health and influencing behaviors. Increased experiential avoidance among healthcare workers has been associated with higher levels of burnout.

Empathy is a cornerstone of psychosocial care for patients and their families in oncology clinics. However, failure to regulate emotions during empathetic interactions can result in compassion fatigue, characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion, anger, disengagement, reduced job performance, and patient dissatisfaction. Effective emotional regulation supports the delivery of empathetic care and protects the psychosocial well-being of nurses. Emotional regulation enhances individuals' emotional awareness and enables more conscious and controlled management of emotions. This study aims to investigate the impact of an emotional regulation skills development program on oncology nurses' emotional regulation difficulties, experiential avoidance, and compassion fatigue in challenging work environments.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Volunteering to participate in the research
  • Working in the specified units for at least six months
  • Not having a disease or disability would make it difficult for them to understand the program and data collection tools and to apply the skills.

Exclusion criteria

  • Having received or currently receiving individual or group psychotherapy/counseling program within the last six months
  • Requesting to withdraw from the study at any stage of the research
  • Regularly missing two consecutive group sessions
  • Failure to attend three or more sessions in total

Treatment and study plan

The Skill Development Program for Emotion Regulation

Behavioral

The Skill Development Program for Emotion Regulation to be carried out with the intervention group was planned as 6 sessions. The aim of this study was to investigate The Skill Development Program for Emotion Regulation Program on oncology nurses' emotion regulation difficulties, emotion regulation skills, experiential avoidance, and compassion fatigue.

Primary outcomes

  1. Change in Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form

    Time frame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)

    Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form consists of 16 items and 5 sub-dimensions in 5-point Likert type (1=almost never, 5=almost always). It has five sub-dimensions: Clarity, Goals, Impulse, Strategies, and Non-Acceptance. A minimum score of 16 points and a maximum score of 80 points can be obtained from the scale and high scores obtained from the sub-dimensions and total score of the scale indicate that emotion regulation difficulties are high.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Change in the Emotion Regulation Skills Scale

    Time frame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)

    The Emotion Regulation Skills Scale is a five-point Likert-type (1=almost never, 5=almost always) self-report instrument consisting of 27 items and nine subscales. The sub-dimensions are Awareness/attention, Body sensations, Clarity, Understanding, Acceptance, Tolerance, Preparation for confrontation, Self-support, and Modification. The minimum score that can be obtained from the scale is 27 and the maximum score is 135. The scale can be evaluated on the total score and the average of the sub-dimension scores

Other outcomes

  1. Change in the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Scale-30

    Time frame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)

    This scale is a 7-point Likert-type (1: Strongly Disagree; 7: Strongly Agree) self-report instrument consisting of 30 items. The minimum score is 30 points and the maximum score is 210 points. This scale has 6 subscales. These subscales consist of behavioral avoidance, aversion to distress, procrastination, distraction/suppression, suppression/denial and endurance of distress. The increase in the scores obtained from the scale means an increase in the level of the related dimension. Only item 15 of the scale items is reverse scored. However, it is possible to get a total score; however, for this purpose, it is necessary to reverse score the distress tolerance dimension.

  2. Change in the Compassion Fatigue Short Scale

    Time frame: [Time Frame: Baseline, 3th week, 3st month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design)

    This scale is a 10-point Likert-type scale ranging from rarely/never (1) to very often (10) and consists of 13 items. The lowest score is 13 and the highest score is 130. As the scores obtained from the scale increase, the level of co-sensory fatigue experienced by individuals also increases. The scale consists of two sub-dimensions: 'secondary trauma' and 'occupational burnout'

  3. Participant Information Form

    Time frame: Time Frame: baseline

    The participant information form included questions about the descriptive characteristics of the nurses. In this context, it includes eight questions such as age, gender, education level, marital status, working time as a nurse, working time as an oncology nurse, number of patients cared for daily, working time per week, place of work, psychiatric diagnosis or treatment, individual or group psychotherapy or psychological counseling program in the past

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Hacettepe University

Other

Registry information

Official study title

The Effect of Skill Development Program for Emotion Regulation on Emotion Regulation, Experiential Avoidance and Compassion Fatigue of Oncology Nurses

Important dates

Study start
2025
Primary completion
2025
Study completion
2025
First posted
Jan 9, 2025
Registry last updated
Jul 22, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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