The mediator role of difficulties in emotion regulation in the relationship between guilt and shame-proneness and somatic symptoms

Background Shame is a distressing self-conscious emotion which arises from evaluating oneself as immodest or indecorous and leads to avoidant behaviour as well as defensive anger. Guilt is the negative appraisal of a behaviour or thought and provides readiness to take action to compensate for the wrongdoing. Experiencing these emotions more intensely and frequently with interruptions during the daily life is named as shame or guilt-proneness. Emotion regulation includes processing and regulation of emotions to keep one pursuing goals in life. Individuals who lack effective skills to regulate their emotions or adopt ineffective ones experience difficulties in emotion regulation. Somatic symptoms include medically unexplained symptoms that one suffers from. Mostly, these symptoms, such as headache, dizziness or nausea, are due to unprocessed emotions carried from childhood as a result of maltreatment or abuse. The literature shows that these variables are related to each other. Methods This study focuses on how emotion regulation difficulties mediate between shame and guilt-proneness and somatic symptoms. The data were collected from 374 participants on online platforms using questionnaires with relevant scales. In order to summarize the data collected descriptive statistics was conducted and the relationship between variables was understood with correlation analysis. Furthermore, predictor role of shame-proneness was analysed with regression analysis and mediation analysis was employed to reveal the mediator role difficulties in emotion regulation in relationship between shame-proneness and somatic symptoms. Conclusion The results illustrated that all variables except guilt-proneness were associated with each other and difficulties in emotion regulation have a mediator role between two variables. The results can benefit mental health workers and patients who lack emotion regulation strategies and deal with somatic symptoms.