(PS14-84) The Relationship Between Emotion Regulation, Mindfulness and Health Promoting Behaviors in Veterans with PTSD After Brief Mindfulness Training

Introduction. Veterans have the potential to benefit from mindfulness interventions that promote healthier lifestyles. Although previous research has investigated the relationships between both mindfulness and emotion regulation and mindfulness and health behaviors, research has not examined the relative contributions of emotion regulation and mindfulness on health promoting behaviors in the Veteran population. Gaining mindfulness and emotion regulation skills can motivate individuals to take action on their overall well-being. One example of an intervention that implements mindfulness to promote behavior change and foster health goals is Primary Care Brief Mindfulness Training (PCBMT). This research investigates whether there is a relationship between emotion regulation, mindfulness, and improvements on health promoting behaviors in Veterans with PTSD following PCBMT. Methods. This is a secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial PCBMT for Veterans with PTSD. Participants that were randomized to PCMBT were primary care patients with DSM-5 PTSD symptoms and were not participating in PTSD psychotherapies (n = 28, 85.7% male; age M = 55 years, range: 29-77). This study specifically investigated the post-intervention responses of the following measures: Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) including the Emotion Regulation Suppression (ERSup) and Emotion Regulation Reappraisal (ERRea) subscales, Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP-II), and Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-15). HPLP-II assesses healthy lifestyles by evaluating health responsibility, stress management and spiritual growth. Since the data was normally distributed, Pearson’s r was first utilized to complete the correlations. Next, a linear regression was conducted to examine the relationship between FFMQ-15, ERSup, and ERRea to HPLP-II. Listwise deletion was used to remove cases with missing data. Results. After completing the analysis, the results found that HPLP-II is significantly correlated with FFMQ-15(r=.531, p=.004), but not the ER subscales. FFMQ-15 is significantly related to ERRea (r=.487, p=.010). The linear regression demonstrated that FFMQ-15 significantly predicted HPLP-II (B=.536, p=.05), but not the ERQ subscales. The overall model accounted for 28% of the variance in health promoting behaviors. Discussion. These findings suggest that an increase in mindfulness skills is more strongly related to health promoting behaviors than changes in emotion regulation among this sample of Veterans who completed a brief mindfulness intervention. Mindfulness skills are also associated with both health promoting behaviors and emotional regulation reappraisal following PCMBT. Considering these results, mindfulness interventions can be utilized to promote positive health behaviors, overall mindfulness, and emotion regulation (both ERSup and ERRea) in Veterans with PTSD. The study’s small sample size is a limitation, and these analyses should be replicated in a larger sample. Overall, understanding the relationships between health promoting behaviors, emotion regulation, and mindfulness could help guide intervention content to support patients’ engagement in health behaviors.