TY - JOUR
T1 - Emotional Self-Regulation and Self-Care as Predictors of Quality of Life in Emerging Adults With Chronic Conditions
AU - Marques, Mariana
AU - Gouveia, Patrícia
AU - Kern de Castro, Elisa
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood and SAGE Publishing. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
PY - 2026
Y1 - 2026
N2 - This cross-sectional study examined associations among emotional self-regulation, self-care, and quality of life (QoL) among 111 Portuguese emerging adult university students (aged 18–29) with chronic conditions. Participants completed validated measures of emotion regulation (DERS-SF), self-care (SC-CII v4. c), and QoL (WHOQOL-bref). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that self-care maintenance emerged as the strongest positive predictor across all QoL domains (physical, psychological, social, environmental), consistently surpassing emotional regulation factors after controlling for sociodemographics. Emotion regulation difficulties (strategies, goals, awareness, and non-acceptance) showed negative associations, particularly with physical, psychological, and environmental QoL, while age at diagnosis negatively predicted physical and psychological QoL. These findings underscore emotional regulation and self-care as critical intervention targets to enhance well-being during the university transition for emerging adults managing chronic illnesses.
AB - This cross-sectional study examined associations among emotional self-regulation, self-care, and quality of life (QoL) among 111 Portuguese emerging adult university students (aged 18–29) with chronic conditions. Participants completed validated measures of emotion regulation (DERS-SF), self-care (SC-CII v4. c), and QoL (WHOQOL-bref). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that self-care maintenance emerged as the strongest positive predictor across all QoL domains (physical, psychological, social, environmental), consistently surpassing emotional regulation factors after controlling for sociodemographics. Emotion regulation difficulties (strategies, goals, awareness, and non-acceptance) showed negative associations, particularly with physical, psychological, and environmental QoL, while age at diagnosis negatively predicted physical and psychological QoL. These findings underscore emotional regulation and self-care as critical intervention targets to enhance well-being during the university transition for emerging adults managing chronic illnesses.
KW - chronic illness
KW - emerging adulthood
KW - emotional self-regulation
KW - quality of life
KW - self-care
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105040598573
U2 - 10.1177/21676968261455950
DO - 10.1177/21676968261455950
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105040598573
SN - 2167-6968
JO - Emerging Adulthood
JF - Emerging Adulthood
ER -