Examining the Measurement and Validity of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and Its Short Forms

Emotion regulation is a transdiagnostic development and maintenance factor for internalizing and externalizing psychopathology, and one popular measure of emotion dysregulation is the 36-item Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Due to psychometric issues and concerns with length, research with the DERS has produced multiple short forms of the scale. The present study, using a convenience sample of 618 college students with measures administered online, aimed to examine and compare all DERS versions to identify the best fitting model. Each of the five versions of the DERS was examined using a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), including both correlated factors models and bifactor models, as appropriate. The bifactor DERS-18 model was determined to be the best fitting model, and it was retained for subsequent analyses. In keeping with similar studies, findings indicated that the awareness factor was not well defined. Next, the specific factors and the general factor of the DERS-18 were correlated with the scale scores of the MMPI-3 to examine the relationships with psychopathology. The specific factors, but not the general factor alone, were related to internalizing MMPI-3 scale scores; however, the DERS-18 factors had low or nonsignificant correlations with externalizing scales. Results suggested that in a large non-clinical sample, the DERS-18 was primarily associated with internalizing psychopathology at the latent level, so it may be more appropriate for use in assessing internalizing distress rather than associations with external behaviors.