Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale 情绪调节困难量表

Synopsis

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is an instrument measuring emotion regulation problems. The 36 items self-report scale asks respondents how they relate to their emotions in order to produce scores on the following subscales.
Nonacceptance of emotional responses
Difficulty engaging in goal-directed behaviour
Impulse control difficulties
Lack of emotional awareness
Limited access to emotion regulation strategies
Lack of emotional clarity
This tool can be especially useful in helping patients identify areas for growth in how they respond to their emotions, especially those with Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder or Substance Use Disorder.
This scale measures an integrative conceptualization of emotion regulation as involving not just the modulation of emotional arousal, but also the awareness, understanding, and acceptance of emotions, and the ability to act in desired ways regardless of emotional state.
Given that successful emotion regulation is a key aspect of personal well-being, difficulties in emotion regulation are theorised to be a transdiagnostic risk for the onset and maintenance across psychopathologies.
If the DERS is administered twice or more NovoPsych will graph scores over time, indicating the progress the respondent has made during treatment. There is also a 16 item version of the DERS available, the DERS-16.
Validity and Reliability
During development of the scale it was found that the DERS had high internal consistency, good test–retest reliability, and adequate construct and predictive validity (Gratz & Roemer, 2003).
Based on a sample of 427 adults presenting at an outpatient clinic diagnosed with one or more DSM-5 disorder, Hallion et al. (2018) found that the DERS had good internal consistency, particularly when the Awareness subscale is excluded, indicating that Awareness may be a seperate construct.
The means and standard deviations for the sample are presented below.
– Total M = 89.33, SD = 22.64
– Non-acceptance M = 14.67, SD = 5.92
– Goals M = 15.42, SD = 4.215
– Impulse M = 12.58, SD = 4.97
– Awareness M = 15.55, SD = 4.92
– Strategies M = 19.67, SD = 7.31
– Clarity M = 12.01, SD = 4.04

Scoring and Interpretation

Scores are presented as a total score as well as a score for each of the 6 subscales. Higher scores suggest greater problems with emotion regulation.
Scores are presented as a total score as well as a score for each of the 6 subscales. Higher scores suggest greater problems with emotion regulation.
Scores are also presented as a percentile rank, which compares the respondent’s scores against adults seeking outpatient psychological therapy (Hallion et al., 2018). A percentile of 50 indicates typical scores in comparison to others presenting for treatment, with higher scores indicating more severe problems. Percentiles are the preferred method for interpretation given they contextualise scores via comparison to peers.