Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: Anxiety disorders are influential in many aspects of a person's life in such a way that most of the affected people become withdrawn and isolated. Although anxiety is not a psychological sign of pathology and every person may experience it in life, when its level and intensity exceed a certain limit, it leads to confusion in a person and can destroy his authority and performance. New conceptualizations have emphasized the importance of emotions, especially emotional regulation and personality traits such as extroversion and neuroticism, in the production and persistence of anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder. On the other hand, one of the characteristics of people that can affect the way and extent of dealing with sources of anxiety and emotional disturbances is psychological hardiness. So that people with higher psychological toughness have better resilience against anxiety. Therefore, considering that we are witnessing an increase in the prevalence of anxiety among different strata of society, and anxiety is associated with an increase in medical expenses and a decrease in individual, occupational, and social performance, the present study was conducted to develop a structural model of the relationship between personality traits and emotional regulation with the mediating role of psychological toughness in patients with anxiety.
Methods: The present study was a structural equation modeling correlation. The statistical population of the present study included all patients with anxiety referred to psychological counseling and services centers in Tehran City, Iran, in 2021–2022. Of them, 300 people were selected by random multi–stage cluster sampling according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The criteria for entering the sample group were as follows: receiving a diagnosis of anxiety disorder by the counseling and psychological services center, lacking any other coexisting disorder, being 20–45 years old, having consent to participate in the research, and having normal intelligence based on the file in the center. The exclusion criteria included lack of motivation of the participants and incomplete completion of the questionnaires. The data collection tools in the current research included the Personality Traits Scale (Costa and McCree, 1992), the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Gross and John, 2003), and the Psychological Hardiness Questionnaire (Kobasa, 1979). After the research implementation, the research data was analyzed using structural equation modeling and path analysis, and the test of mediating effects in the proposed model with the bootstrap method using SPSS26 and AMOS24 software was performed.
Results: The results of structural equation modeling supported the suitable fit of the proposed model (goodness of fit=0.983, comparative fit index= 0.991, root–mean–square error = 0.069, and root mean square residual= 0.033). The bootstrap method estimated the coefficient relations of direct, indirect, and total effects. The results showed that the personality traits of agreeableness through psychological hardiness had indirect effects on re–evaluation (p< 0.001, β=0.2263) and suppression (p<0.001, β=–0.1910) and responsibility trait on re–evaluation (p<0.001, β=0.0893) and suppression (p<0.001, β=–0.0754). In addition, the psychotic trait personality through psychological hardiness has a direct effect on re–evaluation (p<0.001, β=–0.0813).
Conclusion: The results showed that psychological toughness could mediate the relationship between personality traits and emotional regulation. Therefore, health therapists can pay attention to the findings of this study and the relationship between psychological hardiness and personality traits to enrich their diagnostic formulation in terms of emotional regulation of anxiety patients.