Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: The human psyche is directly affected by physical condition. The human body and the functions of the organs are reciprocally affected by the psychological and nervous environment. Paying attention to the psychological health of employees can be one of the main goals of mental health professionals. In this regard, most employees have different job duties, long working hours, high volume and workload, lack of job security, high noise in the work environment, occupational hazards, and the possibility of injury in the work environment, as well as challenges in communication with subordinates and superiors. They face various job encounters at the workplace. Therefore, it is likely that they experience psychological problems as well, which leads to an increase in psychological distress and a decrease in interpersonal emotion regulation. Accordingly, it is very important to use effective interventions to improve anxiety tolerance and interpersonal emotional regulation. So, the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of communication skills training on distress tolerance and interpersonal emotional regulation of employees of the Ministry of Cooperation, Labor, and Social Welfare.
Methods: This study was quasi–experimental and employed a pretest–posttest design with control and experimental groups. The statistical population of this research included all employees of the Ministry of Cooperation, Labor, and Social Welfare. Among the statistical population, 30 qualified volunteers were available and entered into the study, randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (each group includes 15 people). The inclusion criteria include being in the age range of 25 to 60 years, lacking a psychiatric illness, not participating in other treatment programs at the same time, having informed consent to participate in research, and having at least a diploma. Exclusion criteria were absenteeism for more than three sessions and non–observance of group therapy rules. In this research, ethical standards, including obtaining informed consent and guaranteeing privacy and confidentiality, were observed. Also, at the time of participating in the study, the participants were free to withdraw from the research at any time. They were assured that their information would remain confidential, and this was also fully respected. After the end of the study, communication skills training was implemented for the people in the control group. Both groups completed the Distress Tolerance Scale (Simons & Gaher, 2005) and the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Hofmann, 2014). The communication skills training program was implemented in the experimental group for ten 90–minute sessions, two sessions per week, but the control group did not receive any treatment plan. Data analysis was carried out in two parts: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. At the level of descriptive statistics, frequency, mean, and standard deviation were reported. In the inferential statistics, analysis of covariance was used. Data analysis was done in SPSS software version 27, and the significance level of the tests was considered to be 0.05.
Result: The results showed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the posttest, after removing the effect of the pretest in the variables of the Distress tolerance (tolerance, absorption, evaluation and regulation) (p<0.001) and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation (enhancing positive affect, soothing, and social modeling) (p<0.001). Also, positive psychology training could increase tolerance by 66%, absorption by 57%, evaluation by 63%, and hate and regulation by 49% in components of distress tolerance. In addition, positive psychology training increased the enhancement of positive affect by 52%, soothing by 50%, and social modeling by 44% in components of Interpersonal Emotion Regulation.
Conclusion: This research demonstrated that the communication skills training program is suitable for improving distress tolerance and increasing interpersonal emotion regulation among the Ministry of Cooperation, Labor, and Social Welfare staff.