the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between defense styles and psychological vulnerability among emergency medicine physicians

Background: excessive work-related psychological pressures can endanger health by causing physical, mental, and behavioral complications. objectives: the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between defense styles and psychological vulnerability among emergency medicine physicians. methods: the statistical population of this descriptive correlational study comprised all emergency medicine physicians working in tehran hospitals in 2021 - 2022, from whom a sample of 380 was selected using cluster sampling. the research instruments included the symptom checklist-25 (scl-25), the defense style questionnaire (dsq), and cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (cerq). the data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (sem) in lisrel 8.8. results: based on the results, the research model had a good fit (cfi = 0.96, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) = 0.058). there was an indirect relationship between the defense styles of emergency medicine physicians and psychological vulnerability, mediated by emotion regulation (p < 0.001). there were direct relationships between defense styles and psychological vulnerability, between emotion regulation and psychological vulnerability, and between defense styles and emotion regulation (p < 0.001). conclusions: health professionals and therapists can thus reduce psychological vulnerability among emergency medicine physicians by improving their immature and neurotic defense styles and enhancing their cognitive emotion regulation.