title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, United States. Electronic address: adpower@emory.edu.
authors.forename: Abigail
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Powers
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, United States.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, United States.
authors.forename: Negar
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fani
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, United States; Atlanta VA Medical Center, United States.
authors.forename: Bekh
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bradley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D015897:Comorbidity; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005845:Georgia; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011203:Poverty; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012307:Risk Factors; D057566:Self Report; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population
keywords: Depression; Emotion regulation; PTSD; Traumatized population