Background: Hospital nurses are more exposed to health anxiety due to close contact with patients. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the mediating role of mental toughness in the relationship between meta-emotion and co-rumination with nurses' health anxiety. Methods: The research method was structural equations type correlation. The statistical sample of the research included 250 nurses from hospitals in West Azarbaijan province in 2022, who were selected by simple random sampling. Salkovskis and Warwick's (2002) health anxiety scale, Mitmansgruber et al.'s meta-emotion questionnaire (2009), Clough et al.'s (2002) mental toughness scale, and Davidson's co-rumination questionnaire (2014) were used to measure the variables. The data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient, Sobel test and bootstrap. Results: Findings indicated that the meta-emotion and co-rumination variable interact with the mediating role of mental toughness which has a role in explaining the nurses’ model of health anxiety. In total, 38% of the variance of health anxiety was explained through the variables of negative and positive meta-emotion, co-rumination and psychological stability. The direct effect of positive meta-emotion (-0.327), negative meta-emotion (0.318), mental toughness (-0.452), and co-rumination (0.367) are significant in explaining the health anxiety model. Furthermore, the indirect effect of negative meta-emotion (0.158), positive meta-emotion (-0.161), and co-rumination (0.155) with the mediation of the role of mental toughness is significant. Conclusion: Considering the direct and indirect effects of meta-emotion, mental toughness and co-rumination variables on the level of health anxiety variable, it seems that by strengthening positive meta-emotion and mental toughness, and improving corumination and negative meta-emotion, the health anxiety in nurses can be reduced.
