1. Introduction
COVID-19 pandemic has adverse psychosocial effects on families. Iranian research on married women aged 20-30 indicated that the prevalence of anxiety was 11.90% among them. In social distancing time, families must commit to their responsibilities, such as parenting and housekeeping. These duties are essential, especially for women who are responsible for health care issues. One of the influential factors on an individual’s perception is the meaning of life as a subjective feeling of meaningfulness in traumatic situations. This perception includes the sense of purpose and perceiving life completely. The tendency of developing the meaning of life comes from tough conditions. Also, emotional regulation can effectively modulate emotions during hard times. Reassessment of a situation is a type of emotional regulation which can help understand the problems as it leads to managing emotions and coping with stressful conditions. The benefits of emotional regulation are reducing sensitivity and eliminating anxiety which is the most significant result of this regulation. Another research on women’s mental health reported that women were more vulnerable than men in facing anxiety and tension during COVID-19. This issue is notable as there seems to be a heavy psychological burden for women, and they have to carry a lot of responsibilities, from parenting and housekeeping to taking care of sick and old members of the family. These negative consequences of COVID-19 are emerging between Iranian families. In light of this evidence, the perceived stress of COVID-19 can be reduced if the psychological interventions were implemented at the right time with the aims of amplifying the meaning of life and teaching emotional regulation strategies to the families. In this research, we will review the role of predictive variables related to perceived stress, including emotional regulation and sense of meaning.
2. Methods
In this descriptive-correlational study, according to the Cochran test and following convenience sampling method, 100 women with an average age of 31.17 years from the study population of Islamic Azad University, Lahijan Branch, Lahijan City, Iran were selected. The study data were collected using emotional regulation, the meaning of life, and perceived stress questionnaires. Before distributing the questionnaires, particular questions were determined based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Finally, the data were analyzed by the Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression (backward computation) with SPSS version 20.
3. Results
The participants were 20-54 years old with an Mean±SD age of 31.17±8.76 years. The majority of them had a Bachelor’s degree (76.30%), then a Master’s degree (19.20%), and finally a PhD degree (4.5%). Table 1 presents the average and standard deviation of variables such as perceived stress, emotional regulation, and sense of the meaning of life separately. 


The normality of data distribution was proved by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test as the assumptions of the Pearson correlation and regression analysis. There were significant relationships between perceived stress and some negative emotional regulation subscales, such as blaming others and thought rumination. Also, there were significant relationships between perceived stress and positive emotional regulation subscales such as positive reassessment. Moreover, there was a significant positive relationship between the presence of meaning and the particular emotional regulation subscales like positive reassessment and acceptance (P<0.01). On the contrary, there was a negative significant relationship with thought rumination (P<0.05). Furthermore, there were significant positive relationships between searching for meaning, positive refocusing, and catastrophizing (P<0.01). Among the study variable, the presence of meaning, blaming others, and positive reassessment can predict 22% of changes related to criterion variables in multiple linear regression.
4. Discussion and Conclusion
Based on the results, by utilizing an efficient, emotional regulation strategy and having a sense of meaning, anxiety will come down considerably among women. On the contrary, inefficient emotional regulation strategies play a crucial role in soaring perceived stress. The advantage of applying compatible strategies, such as positive reassessment against environmental pressure, is decreasing the negative emotional burden. It is one of the most beneficial ways to develop positive and efficient emotion. Sense of meaning is an appropriate tool for resisting tough times by opening the horizon to positive outlooks. The presence of meaning is another profitable factor contributing to reducing particular inefficient behaviors like blaming others by using positive reassessment. COVID-19 pandemic might be expressed as an invitation by mental specialists to understand the negative consequences of psychosocial effects. This issue is not only significant for the present disease but also crucial for all contagious diseases in the future. Further studies on children, men, and old people could generalize our results. According to the analyzed data, we strongly recommend families reduce their stress and immunize their mental health by learning emotional regulation and meaning therapy in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study was approved by the Research Search Ethics Committees of Islamic Azad University-lahijan branch (Code: IR.IAU.LIAU.REC.1399.069). All ethical principles are considered in this article. The participants were informed about the purpose of the research and its implementation stages. They were also assured about the confidentiality of their information. They were free to leave the study whenever they wished, and if desired, the research results would be available to them.

Funding
This research did not receive any grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors. 

Authors' contributions
All authors equally contributed to preparing this article.

Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the research assistant of Islamic Azad University, Lahijan Branch, and all participants who helped us in this study.


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