Construct validity of a short, self report instrument assessing emotional dysregulation

Abstract

There is a need for a brief measure of emotion dysregulation that can be used in large-scale studies. This study evaluated the construct validity of a short, self-report instrument of emotion dysregulation. Subjects (N=2197) were recruited from primary care clinics of an urban public hospital as part of a study of trauma-related risk and resilience. Emotion dysregulation was measured using the Emotion Dysregulation Scale, short version (EDS-short), a12-item self-report measure assessing emotional experiencing, cognition, and behavior. EDS-short was first compared with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Then, the construct validity of the EDS-short in predicting depression, posttraumatic stress, substance abuse, borderline pathology, suicide attempts, psychiatric hospitalizations, positive affect, and resiliency was assessed. We found a significant positive correlation between EDS-short and DERS. The EDS-short was significantly predictive of higher reported depressive, posttraumatic stress, substance abuse, and borderline symptoms, and lower reported positive affect and resiliency, over and above demographic characteristics and negative affect. Our results demonstrate that the EDS-short is a useful instrument for measuring emotion dysregulation in traumatized populations. A brief measure of emotion dysregulation is critical as the field moves forward in studying the wide ranging negative effects of emotion dysregulation across psychiatric disorders and outcomes.

Keywords: Depression; Emotion regulation; PTSD; Traumatized population.