Barrett Emily N, Frey Benicio N, Streiner David L, Agako Arela, Inness Briar E, Furtado Melissa, Caropreso Luisa, Green Sheryl M
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
J Reprod Infant Psychol. 2025 Jan;43(1):195-214. doi: 10.1080/02646838.2023.2227648. Epub 2023 Jun 21.
One in five pregnant and postpartum individuals experience an anxiety, depressive, and/or trauma-related disorder. Emotion dysregulation (ED) underlies the development and maintenance of various mental health disorders. The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is the most comprehensive and commonly used measure of emotion dysregulation, yet limited evidence supports its use in the perinatal population. The present study aims to evaluate the validity of the DERS and its six subscales in a perinatal sample and to assess its predictive utility in identifying perinatal individuals with a disorder characterised by emotion dysregulation.
Pregnant and postpartum individuals ( = 237) completed a diagnostic clinical interview and self-report measures of anxiety, depression, and perceived social support.
The DERS subscales demonstrated good internal consistency and construct validity, as it strongly correlated with measures of anxiety and depression and failed to correlate with a measure of perceived social support. Results from an exploratory factor analysis supported a 6-factor solution, suggesting structural validity. An ROC analysis revealed good to excellent discriminative ability for the DERS full scale and four of the subscales. Finally, an optimal clinical cut-off score of 87 or greater was established with a sensitivity of 81% for detecting a current anxiety, depressive, and/or trauma-related disorder.
This study provides evidence for the validity and clinical utility of the DERS in a treatment-seeking and community sample of pregnant and postpartum individuals.
五分之一的孕妇和产后女性会经历焦虑、抑郁和/或创伤相关障碍。情绪调节障碍（ED）是各种心理健康障碍发生和维持的基础。情绪调节困难量表（DERS）是最全面且常用的情绪调节障碍测量工具，但仅有有限的证据支持其在围产期人群中的应用。本研究旨在评估DERS及其六个子量表在围产期样本中的有效性，并评估其在识别以情绪调节障碍为特征的围产期患者方面的预测效用。
237名孕妇和产后女性完成了诊断性临床访谈以及焦虑、抑郁和感知社会支持的自我报告测量。
DERS子量表显示出良好的内部一致性和结构效度，因为它与焦虑和抑郁测量指标高度相关，而与感知社会支持测量指标不相关。探索性因素分析结果支持六因素模型，表明具有结构效度。ROC分析显示DERS总量表及四个子量表具有良好至优秀的判别能力。最后，确定最佳临床临界值为87分及以上，检测当前焦虑、抑郁和/或创伤相关障碍的灵敏度为81%。
本研究为DERS在寻求治疗的孕妇和产后女性社区样本中的有效性和临床效用提供了证据。
