Psychometric Validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scales Among Adult Psychiatric Outpatients with High Rates of Borderline Personality Disorder and Substance Use Disorders

Challenges with regulating emotions are common across a number of psychiatric conditions and particularly relevant among adults with borderline personality disorder and substance use disorders. The current study evaluated the structural validity of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, both full form (DERS-36) and short form (DERS-16) in a sample (N = 414) of adult psychiatric outpatients with high rates of borderline personality disorder and substance use disorders. Both versions of the DERS demonstrated good internal consistency but confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not support the previously supported 5- and 6-factor structures for the DERS-36. Conversely, CFA supported the previously validated 5-factor structure for the DERS-16. Furthermore, the DERS-16 subscales exhibited robust associations with measures of psychiatric severity and disability, and convergent validity with multiple indices of impulsivity. Taken together, these findings provide limited support for the DERS-36 and adequate support for the DERS-16 for measuring emotion regulation difficulties among psychiatric outpatients with high rates of borderline personality disorder and substance use disorders. Future research examining other psychometric properties of the DERS-16 in clinical samples, such as predictive validity in relation to treatment outcome, are warranted.