Comparison of the Effectiveness of Emotional Self-Regulation Strategies and Pain Coping Strategies on Health Dimensions among Patients with Coronary Heart Disease

Background: Healthy heart is essential to human life, and cardiovascular disease is not specific to any age or gender and can affect anyone at any age and gender. Objectives: This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of emotional self-regulation strategies and pain coping strategies on health dimensions among patients with coronary heart disease. Methods: This semi-experimental study was conducted based on a pretest-posttest control group design and follow-up. The statistical population consisted of all patients with coronary heart disease referring to Heshmatieh Hospital in Sabzevar, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran, within July-October, 2019. A total of 45 samples were randomly selected and divided into two experimental and one control group. The research instrument was the General Health Questionnaire. The data were analyzed using repeated measure analysis of variance in SPSS 25. Results: The results showed that emotional self-regulation strategies and pain coping strategies had an effect on health dimensions and reduced physical symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression in patients with coronary heart disease (P<0.001). The findings also revealed that in the physical symptoms dimension, the difference between emotional self-regulation strategies and pain coping strategies was significant, and pain coping strategies were more effective than emotional self-regulation strategies (P<0.001). Conclusion: Training emotional self-regulation and pain coping skills may enhance health outcomes in people with coronary heart disease.