An Item Response Theory examination of the original and short forms of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) in pregnant women

Abstract

Objectives: Emotion dysregulation during pregnancy may impede women's capacity to navigate increased stressors during this period and may elevate risk for psychosocial impairment, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged or racially marginalized women. Valid and efficient assessment of emotion dysregulation is needed.Methods: We used Item Response Theory (IRT) to examine the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) in 248 low income, primarily Latina/x pregnant women, to compare the short forms relative to the full DERS.Results: IRT indicated that the short forms exhibited modest reliability, but also indicated a substantial decrease in information (i.e., reliability) for the short forms compared with the full DERS. IRT indicated that the DERS-16 appeared more reliable (conserve more information) relative to the other short forms, the DERS-SF and DERS-18. Conclusion:Findings suggest that clinicians and researchers use the full DERS when time permits and the DERS-16 when needing a briefer version.

Investigating the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Eating Disorder Examination‐Questionnaire (EDE‐Q) in a community sample of gender minority adults from the United States

“…Given the wide variety of EDE‐Q factor structures that have received empirical support across prior studies with diverse samples, we used a comparative confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach to evaluate the generalizability of these factor structures to the current study sample. Notably, this comparative approach is consistent with prior studies examining the factor structure and psychometrics of the EDE‐Q (Allen et al, 2011; Compte et al, 2019; Klimek, Convertino, Pennesi, et al, 2021; Machado et al, 2020), as well as research evaluating measures of other psychological and health‐related constructs (Goldstein et al, 2021; Manzar et al, 2016; Peralta & Cuesta, 1995; Serretti & Olgiati, 2004). As such, we aimed to (1) evaluate several previously investigated EDE‐Q factor structures and identify the best‐fitting model in separate samples of transgender men, transgender women, and gender‐expansive people and (2) for the best‐fitting model, evaluate internal consistency and measurement invariance across gender minority subgroups.…”

Evidence of validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale–18 in Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African emerging adults living in the United States.

“…The goal of the DERS is to assess levels of the respondent’s ability to access and engage with a variety of emotion regulation strategies, with higher scores indicating greater difficulty or greater emotional dysregulation. Just in the past several years, the DERS-18 has been evaluated among numerous populations, including clinical (e.g., severe mental illness, Charak et al, 2019; chronic pain and substance use problems, Lutz et al, 2018), nonclinical (e.g., pregnant women, Goldstein et al, 2021), and marginalized populations (e.g., Black women with trauma exposure, Mekawi et al, 2021; homelessness, Semborski et al, 2021). Despite the increased attention toward validating the DERS-18 among specific populations, the DERS-18 has yet to be validated for use among the Arab/MENA population.…”

An Item Response Theory to Analyze the Psychological Impacts of Rail-Transport Delay

“…The autismrelevant quality of life in autistic adults was psychometrically evaluated [8]. IRT was also recently used for psychometric properties of Addenbrooke's cognitive examination (ACE-III) [9], for self-reflection and insight scale [10], examination of the original and short-term difficulties in emotion recognition scales [11], and development and validation of the cancer knowledge scale for general population [12].…”