Emotion regulation has been associated with perceived health in rheumatoid 
arthritis, which is diagnosed three times more often in women than men. Our aim 
was to examine gender differences in styles of emotion regulation (ambiguity, 
control, orientation, and expression) and gender-specificity of the associations 
between emotion regulation and perceived health (psychological well-being, 
social functioning, physical functioning, and disease activity) in 244 female 
and 91 male patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Women reported more emotional 
orientation than men, but did not differ from men with regard to ambiguity, 
control, and expression. Structural equation modelling showed that relationships 
between emotion regulation and perceived health were more frequent and stronger 
for women than men. This held especially for the affective dimension of health, 
while associations were similar for both women and men with regard to social and 
physical functioning. Only for women, the association between ambiguity and 
disease activity was significant, which appeared to be mediated by affective 
functioning. The observations that women are more emotionally oriented than men 
and that emotion regulation is more interwoven with psychological health in 
women than men, support the usefulness of a gender-sensitive approach in 
research and health care of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.