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Validating the Factor Structure of the Hindi Version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale

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Abstract

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) assesses emotion regulation among adults and adolescents, in healthy as well as clinical populations. However, its factor structure is a widely debated issue. Although earlier studies replicated the original six-factor structure, they pointed out psychometrically poor items in the DERS. The issue is further complicated by the findings of recent studies reporting a five- or even a four-factor structure of the DERS. Further, several studies have questioned the validity of the Awareness dimension of DERS and suggested excluding this dimension. Against this backdrop, the present study attempts to examine the factor structure of the Hindi version of the DERS (DERS-H) on 434 healthy participants (303 females, 131 males) of middle socio-economic status. Findings of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) did not support either of the one-, six- or five-factor solutions. After excluding five psychometrically poor items (poor loadings and higher standardized residuals), the CFA though yielded a satisfactory fit for first-order six-factor model, the second-order model did not fit well. However, after removing the Awareness dimension, the first-order as well as the second-order modified five-factor models provided apt fits to the data. This modified DERS-H (and its five sub-domains) showed satisfactory reliability and validity as well as factor structure invariance across gender and age. The findings suggest that the modified DERS-H is a psychometrically sound tool (with stable factor structure) to measure the second-order construct of emotion regulation difficulties as well as its five first-order subdomains, particularly in the Indian cultural context.

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Funding

The research was supported by BHU research fellowship (Ref. no. Psych./Res./September, 2009/ 96 (J)) awarded to the first author.

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  1. Prachi Bhatnagar

    Present address: Department of Psychology, Amity University, Noida, 201313, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

    Prachi Bhatnagar & Rakesh Pandey

  2. Department of Psychology, Magadh University, Bodh Gaya, Bihar, 824234, India

    Meenakshi Shukla

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Prachi Bhatnagar, Meenakshi Shukla, & Rakesh Pandey declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (study was approved by the Departmental Research Committee (DRC) & Research Programme Committee (RPC) of B.H.U.) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 10 Rotated six-factor structure matrix of the Hindi version of the DERS
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Table 11 Rotated four-factor structure matrix of the Hindi version of the DERS
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Table 12 Rotated five-factor structure matrix of the Hindi version of the DERS
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Bhatnagar, P., Shukla, M. & Pandey, R. Validating the Factor Structure of the Hindi Version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 42, 377–396 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-020-09796-6

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