Psychology, 2022, 13, 361-374

https://www.scirp.org/journal/psych
ISSN Online: 2152-7199
ISSN Print: 2152-7180

Psychometric Properties of Difficulties in

Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) on Young
Nigerian People

Ebenezer Olutope Akinnawo1, Bede Chinonye Akpunne2* , Steven Ikechukwu Akpunne3,

Ibukunoluwa Busayo Bello2, Deborah Foluke Onisile4, Elizabeth Nkechi Akpunne2
1
Department of Pure and Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Ondo, Nigeria
2
Department of Behavioural Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Nigeria
3
Harriett A. Woolford Health Center, Morgan State University, Baltimore, USA
4
Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Nigeria

How to cite this paper: Akinnawo, E. O., Abstract

Akpunne, B. C., Akpunne, S. I., Bello, I. B.,
Onisile, D. F., & Akpunne, E. N. (2022). A cross-sectional survey design was adopted to validate the Difficulties in
Psychometric Properties of Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) on Nigerian university undergraduates. A
Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) on Young
Nigerian People. Psychology, 13, 361-374.
multistage sampling technique was used to purposively select 1338 (mean age
https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2022.133023 ± SD 19.86 ± 2.95) participants made up of 512 (38.3%) male, and 826
(61.7%) were female. Participants were drawn from four selected universities
Received: January 27, 2022
in Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. Participants responded to the Difficul-
Accepted: March 15, 2022
Published: March 18, 2022 ties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and the Structured Interview for Disorders
of Extreme Stress (SIDES) Affect Dysregulation Scale. Observed internal con-
Copyright © 2022 by author(s) and sistency of DERS showed a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .90, a Spear-
Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
man-Brown coefficient of .80 and Guttman Split-Half coefficient of .80. The
Commons Attribution International items that measure awareness of emotion had a weak corrected item-total
License (CC BY 4.0). correlation and did not discriminate well. A significant positive correlation
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
was observed between DERS and SIDES, revealing a correlation coefficient
Open Access
validity score of (r = .622, p = .000). The DERS has acceptable psychometric
properties for the Nigerian population. Observed gender-based norms were
≥113.15 and ≥114.07 for male and female respectively. DERS is found to be
gender-sensitive. A re-work or expunging of the items measuring awareness
to fit with the construct of emotional regulation was recommended.

Keywords
Psychometric Properties, Emotion Regulation Scale, Nigeria

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2022.133023 Mar. 18, 2022 361 Psychology

E. O. Akinnawo et al.

1. Introduction
Emotion dysregulation has been defined as a multidimensional construct en-
compassing maladaptive responses to negative affective states. Emotion dysre-
gulation is described by a lack of emotional awareness and understanding, no
acceptance or avoidance of emotions, an unwillingness to experience negative
affective states as part of achieving desired goals, difficulties controlling beha-
viour in the face of emotional distress, and deficits in the modulation of emo-
tional arousal (Glenn & Klonsky, 2010; Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Emotion dysre-
gulation has been linked to suicidal behaviour (Gomez-Exposito et al., 2016; Pi-
setsky, Haynos, Lavender, Crow, & Peterson, 2017). It is characterized by diffi-
culties in emotional awareness, clarity, and acceptance and difficulties managing
emotions and refraining from impulsive behaviours when in distress (Gratz &
Roemer, 2004). The diagnosis and symptoms of emotional dysregulation are
linked to an increased risk of future suicide attempts (Smith, Velkoff, Ribeiro, &
Franklin, 2019). According to Rania, Monell, Sjolander and Bulik (2020), emo-
tion dysregulation was linked to suicidality in Swedish participants. Suicide, ac-
cording to some popular beliefs, is an attempt to flee, motivated by severe nega-
tive emotional experiences and occurring with little to no planning (e.g., Mann,
Waternaux, Haas, & Malone, 1999).
Some theories which emphasize the significant emotional (e.g., fear) and
physical (e.g., pain) distress associated with suicide attempts contend that people
must gradually develop the capacity to commit lethal self-harm and that they are
more likely to do so through deliberate attempts to die rather than frantic at-
tempts to escape aversive states (Joiner, 2005). It might be stated that if suicide
attempts are attempts to escape painful affective states, emotion dysregulation
could be a credible motivating force behind this behaviour.
Distress Tolerance (DT), the ability to experience, tolerate, and function in the
context of negative affective states (Simons & Gaher, 2005), and negative urgen-
cy (NU), the tendency to act rashly in the context of negative affective states
(Whiteside & Lynam, 2001), are two more specific affect-related constructs that
are included in Emotion Dysregulation. ED has been linked to a number of
harmful behaviours, including substance abuse (Buckner, Keough, & Schmidt
2007), binge eating (Anestis, Selby, & Joiner, 2007), and unsafe sexual behaviour
(Messman-Moore, Walsh, & DiLillo, 2010; Tull, Weiss, Adams, & Gratz, 2012).
The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) (Gratz & Roemer, 2004)
is a widely used but controversial self-report tool that assesses emotion dysregu-
lation in a broad sense. To date, the original validation document has been cited
approximately 3000 times, translated into various languages, and inspired the
creation of several short forms (DERS-16; DERS-SF; DERS-18) (Bjureberg et al.,
2016; Kaufman et al., 2016; Victor & Klonsky, 2016). The DERS’ theoretical pa-
radigm (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) is based on “third-wave” cognitive behavioural
therapy approaches, which argue that experiential avoidance plays a fundamen-
tal role in the genesis and maintenance of most forms of emotional disturbance.

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 E. O. Akinnawo et al.

Experiential avoidance is described as intolerance of (typically negative) emo-

tional events as well as maladaptive attempts to escape them (e.g., Hayes et al.,
1996). Emotion regulation abilities are considered intact in this framework when
an individual can behave in a way that helps the achievement of a priori goals,
especially in the face of negative affect or other intense emotional experiences.
The model upon which the DERS is based (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) proposes
four broad facets of emotion regulation: 1) awareness and understanding of
emotions; 2) acceptance of emotions; 3) the ability to control impulses and be-
have in accordance with goals in the presence of negative affect; 4) access to
emotion regulation strategies that are perceived to be effective for feeling better.
This methodology has mostly been adopted in practical clinical research and
therapy settings. This clinical-contextual model of emotion regulation is funda-
mentally different from popular emotion regulation models based on basic affec-
tive science (Aldao, 2013; Gross & Jazaieri, 2014). Affective science-based frame-
works have a narrower conception of emotion regulation and place a greater
emphasis on process rather than anticipated trait-level abilities (Aldao, 2013;
Gross & Jazaieri, 2014; Gross, 2015).
The DERS was created to measure trait-level perceived emotion regulation
capacity, as defined by the clinical-contextual paradigm of Gratz and Roemer
(2004). The original development and validation study’s exploratory factor anal-
ysis showed a six- or seven-component structure. The six-factor structure was
deemed more interpretable and was divided into six sub-dimensions: 1) a lack of
emotional Awareness (Awareness); 2) a lack of emotional clarity (clarity); 3) dif-
ficulty regulating behaviour when distressed (Impulse); 4) difficulty engaging in
goal-directed cognition and behaviour when distressed (Goals); 5) unwillingness
to accept certain emotional responses (Non-acceptance); 6) a lack of access to
strategies for feeling better. Several later factor analytic investigations back up
the initial six-factor model’s fit across a range of populations, including under-
graduate students (Perez et al., 2012) and teenagers (Weinberg & Klonsky, 2009;
Neumann et al., 2010). Despite the wide use and acceptance of this scale, it is yet
to receive adequate research attention in Nigeria.
The DERS has not been validated on any Nigerian population to our know-
ledge. The undergraduates from Nigerian universities were chosen not because
they had the greatest levels of emotion-related illnesses. Emotion dysregulation,
on the other hand, is a substantial health concern for roughly 5% to 10% of tee-
nagers and young people in the general population, according to figures in the
literature. Depression is now again an increasing concern among Nigeria’s stu-
dent population. Depressive symptoms have been linked to a disruption in nega-
tive emotion regulation (Folk, Zeman, Poon, & Dallaire 2014; Tahmouresi, Bend-
er, Schmitz, Baleshzar, & Tuschen-Caffier, 2014; Keenan & Hipwell, 2005). Prob-
lems in emotion management have also been linked to the emergence of depres-
sion symptoms (Feng, Keenan, Hipwell, Henneberger, Rischall, & Butch et al.,
2009). The authors believe that utilizing undergraduates as subjects to validate

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E. O. Akinnawo et al.

the DERS was sufficient for obtaining appropriate psychometric characteristics

for the general population. Based on the aforementioned and the socio-cultural
diversity of Nigeria, this study attempted to evaluate the DERS using Nigerian
samples in order to determine its validity and reliability coefficients for the Ni-
gerian population.

2. Materials and Methods

Study setting
This study was carried out in four different universities in Osun State. These
included one Public State-owned University, two Private Faith-based Universi-
ties, and one private non-faith-based University.
One thousand three hundred thirty-eight undergraduates were drawn from
four universities in Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. The eligibility criteria in-
cluded registered undergraduate students who were currently on full-time study
bases at the time of data collection and were found within the selected universi-
ties campuses. Also, only those who consented to be part of the study were in-
cluded.
Measurements
Two scales were used in this study. The first is the Difficulties in Emotion
Regulation Scale (DERS) (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), which measures how difficult
it is to regulate one’s emotions. With 36 items rated 1 - 5 (nearly never-almost
usually), the DERS (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) assesses emotion dysregulation,
yielding six subscales and a single total scale (range 36 - 180). The DERS has six
subscales: nonacceptance (a negative attitude toward emotional distress; range 6
- 36), goals (difficulties engaging in goal-directed behaviour when upset; range 6
- 30), impulse (difficulties controlling one’s behaviour when upset; range 6 - 36),
Awareness (inability to pay attention and be aware of one’s emotional responses;
range 6 - 36), strategies (limited access to functional emotion regulation strate-
gies when upset; range 6 - 42), and clarity (limited access to functional emotion
regulation strategies when The DERS has reverse-scored items 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10,
17, 20, 22, 24, and 34. The total score is arrived at by adding up checked items.
Higher scores suggest greater problems with emotion regulation.
The second scale is the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress
(SIDES) Affect Dysregulation Scale (Brown, Houck, Lescano, Donenberg, To-
lou-Shams, & Mello, 2012). SIDES measures emotion regulation difficulties in an
adolescent population. The Affect Dysregulation Scale is a six-item self-reported
measure of adolescents’ frequency of difficulties with affect regulation. Items are
measured on four points Likert scale ranging from “Not at all = 1” to “often =
4”.
Existing Psychometric Properties of DERS
The Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale has a reported Cronbachs al-
pha of .93 as reported by the developer. The DERS has good test-retest reliability
and acceptable construct and predictive validity (Gratz & Roemer, 2004; Gratz &

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 E. O. Akinnawo et al.

Tull, 2010). Internal consistency in the current sample was good for the overall
scale (α = .93) and subscales (αs = .80 - .89) (Weiss, Gratz, & Lavender, 2015).
Some recent studies also showed adequate psychometric properties in adults and
adolescents with Emotional Dysregulation (Monell, Bjureberg, Nordgren, Hess-
er, & Birgegård, 2020; Nordgren, Monell, Birgegård, Bjureberg, & Hesser, 2019).
For instance, Monell et al. (2020) reported excellent internal consistency for
goals and impulse (Cronbach αs = .90 and .91, respectively) and good internal
consistency for the remaining four subscales (αs = .81 - .90). DERS also has ac-
ceptable validity coefficients (Egan et al., 2011; Sloan et al., 2017).
Statistical Analysis
Descriptive statistics, including mean and standard deviation, were used to
determine demographic characteristics of the participants. The internal consis-
tency/reliability of DERS, Cronbach’s alpha, Spearman-Brown coefficient and
Guttman Split-Half coefficient was calculated and obtained to determine the ex-
tent to which items in DERS were interrelated. To determine the concurrent va-
lidity Pearson’s Correlation Analysis was used to correlate DERS with Structured
Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES) Affect Dysregulation Scale
(Brown, Houck, Lescano, Donenberg, Tolou-Shams, & Mello, 2012). The item-
total correlations were also obtained to test the relationship between each item
and the composite/total score.

3. Results
The demographic distribution of respondents by sex indicated that 512 (38.3%)
of the respondents were male while 826 (61.7%) were female. Distribution by age
shows that the respondents’ mean ± standard deviation age was 19.86 ± 2.95,
with their age ranging between 15 and 30 years. Distribution by institutions of
learning revealed that 505 (37.7%) were students of Osun State University
(UNIOSUN), 374 (28%) were students of Redeemers’ University Ede, Osun State
(RUN), 189 (14.1%) were students of Fountain University Oshogbo, Osun State,
lastly 270 (20.2%) were students of Oduduwa University Ipetumodu Osun State
(OUI). Distribution of respondents by level of study showed that 409 (30.6%)
were 100 level students, 241 (18.0%) were 200 level students, 363 (27.1%) were
300 level students, 276 (20.6%) were 400 level students, 49 (3.7), while 500 level
students. Also 1302 (97.3%) were single, 33 (2.5%) were married while 3 (.2%)
were engaged.
Measure of Reliability of DERS
To determine the reliability coefficient and verify the internal consistency of
the items and the factors of DERS on Nigerian population, Cronbach’s alpha (or
alpha coefficient), Spearman-Brown coefficient and Guttman Split-Half coeffi-
cient were used. As summarized in Table 1, the internal consistency measured
by Cronbach’s coefficient was =.90. The scale also has a Spearman-Brown coefficient
of .80 and Guttman Split-Half coefficient of .80. Cronbach’s alpha if item is de-
leted ranges from .86 to .88. The result of this analysis shows that DERS is

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E. O. Akinnawo et al.

Table 1. Correlation coefficients of scale items in DERS.

Reliability Statistics
Cronbach’s alpha = .90
Item-Total Statistics

Scale Scale
Corrected Cronbach’s
Mean if Variance if
Item-Total Alpha if
Item Item
Correlation Item Deleted
Deleted Deleted

I am clear about my feelings. 90.22 405.204 .235 .87

I pay attention to how I feel. 90.64 407.883 .203 .87

I experience my emotions as overwhelming and out of control. 90.44 398.045 .393 .87

I have no idea how I am feeling 90.69 396.804 .454 .86

I have difficulty making sense out of my feelings. 90.50 399.302 .367 .87

I am attentive to my feelings. 90.62 410.693 .156 .87

I know exactly how I am feeling. 90.30 408.566 .198 .87

I care about what I am feeling. 90.58 410.436 .161 .87

I am confused about how I feel. 90.57 395.180 .460 .86

When I’m upset, I acknowledge my emotions. 90.20 425.499 −.115 .88

When I’m upset, I become angry with myself for feeling that way. 90.39 393.372 .461 .86

When I’m upset, I become embarrassed for feeling that way. 90.57 389.975 .526 .86

When I’m upset, I have difficulty getting work done. 90.41 392.952 .491 .86

When I’m upset, I become out of control. 90.66 387.762 .585 .86

When I’m upset, I believe that I will remain that way for a long time. 90.66 391.306 .522 .86

When I’m upset, I believe that I will end up feeling very depressed. 90.68 388.609 .563 .86

When I’m upset, I believe that my feelings are valid and important. 90.17 424.981 −.106 .88

When I’m upset, I have difficulty focusing on other things. 90.30 395.786 .439 .86

When I’m upset, I feel out of control. 90.60 388.293 .570 .86

When I’m upset, I can still get things done. 90.09 415.627 .066 .87

When I’m upset, I feel ashamed at myself for feeling that way. 90.58 394.285 .477 .86

When I’m upset, I know that I can find a way to eventually feel better. 90.29 413.347 .106 .87

When I’m upset, I feel like I am weak. 90.49 393.558 .477 .86

When I’m upset, I feel like I can remain in control of my behaviours. 90.15 415.931 .058 .87

When I’m upset, I feel guilty for feeling that way. 90.57 391.487 .514 .86

When I’m upset, I have difficulty concentrating. 90.42 390.545 .523 .86

When I’m upset, I have difficulty controlling my behaviours. 90.71 390.086 .538 .86

When I’m upset, I believe there is nothing I can do to make myself feel better. 90.83 388.285 .587 .86

When I’m upset, I become irritated at myself for feeling that way. 90.74 392.965 .509 .86

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 E. O. Akinnawo et al.

Continued

When I’m upset, I start to feel very bad about myself. 90.77 390.492 .557 .86

When I’m upset, I believe that wallowing in it is all I can do. 90.84 387.388 .604 .86

When I’m upset, I lose control over my behaviour. 90.84 386.398 .637 .86

When I’m upset, I have difficulty thinking about anything else. 90.61 389.521 .569 .86

When I’m upset, I take time to figure out what I’m really feeling. 89.85 437.844 −.335 .88

When I’m upset, it takes me a long time to feel better. 90.42 394.016 .459 .86

When I’m upset, my emotions feel overwhelming. 90.40 393.935 .452 .86

Table 2. Pearson’s correlation of factors and composite DERS.

N = 1338

Mean Standard deviation Factor-total correlation

Nonacceptance 15.1472 5.82441 .757**

Goals 13.5658 4.31021 .730**

Impluse 15.0755 5.09266 .813**

Awareness 16.4163 5.32301 .087**

Strategies 19.7526 6.73414 .849**

Clarity 13.1233 3.96475 .667**

reliable for the Nigerian population. Also, the items that measure Awareness of
emotion (items 2, 6, 10, 17, and 34) have weak corrected item-total correlation.
Put together, all items in the scale resulted in acceptable goodness-of-fit meas-
ures.
Table 2 reveals that each of the factors in the scale has a significant positive
correlation with the composite score of DERS.
Cronbach’s alpha was also used to measure the unidimensionality and homo-
geneity of the factors of DERS. The observed Cronbach αs are: nonacceptance α
= .81, goals α = .65, impulse α = .70, awareness α = .74, strategies α = .78 and
Clarity α = .54. Except for lack of emotional clarity, all the factors of DERS have
a good and adequate internal consistency (Deepa-Enlighten, 2017).
The Measure of Validity of DERS
In previous studies, significant validity coefficients was found between DERS and
related constructs. For instance in determining the convergent validity between
DERS and the Anxiety and Depression sub-dimensions of the Symptom Check-
list-90-R (SCL-90) (Derogatis, 1994), Egan et al. (2011) and Sloan et al. (2017) re-
ported direct associations [r(114) = .52, p < .01] for anxiety and [r(114) = .63, p
< .01] for depression. Also, Balaguer-Pich et al. (2018) reported a significant rela-
tionship between scores on the DERS and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale scores.
This validation exercise employed concurrent validity to show how well DERS
compares to other standardized related tests. Using Pearson’s correlations, the

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E. O. Akinnawo et al.

observed correlation coefficient (r) between DERS and Structured Interview for
Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES) Affect Dysregulation Scale (Brown et al.,
2012) was .622, p = .000. This result showed that DERS is valid for the Nigerian
population.
Norms for DERS
The 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to determine the cutoff points for
DERS. The derived CI based on a sample of 481 male participants was between a
range of 92.7 and 96.0. On the other hand, the derived CI for females based on
780 samples was between a range of 90.6 and 93.7. The mean plus one standard
deviation of ≥113.15 and ≥114.07 was considered the cutoff points (norm) for
the male and female samples. Scores above the norm implied emotion dysregu-
lation. This is summarized in Table 3.
As summarized in Table 4, the score of the mean plus 1 standard deviation of
each of the subscales of the DERS was used to determine the cutoff for the subs-
cales.

4. Discussion
The focus of this study is to obtain a psychometric property for the difficulties in
emotion regulation scale (DERS) for the Nigerian adolescent population. Consis-
tent with previous findings (Gratz & Tull, 2010; Nordgren et al., 2019; Monell et
al., 2020), the DERS on Nigerian samples has excellent internal consistency, showing
a Cronbach’s alpha of .90. This, by implication, shows a good inter-relatedness of
the items of the DERS, unidimensionality and homogeneity of the construct
(Cortina, 1993; Bland & Altman, 1997) among the Nigerian population. The alpha
score is also not too high to render some items redundant as the alpha values did
not exceed the maximum value of .90 (Streiner, 2003; DeVellis, 2003).
Our study’s high Cronbach’s alpha score shows that DERS has a strong internal

Table 3. 95% confidence interval of cutoff point determination for DERS by gender.

Male Female

Margin of error 1.68 1.53

Sample size 481 780

Sample mean 94.34 92.14

Standard deviation 18.81 21.926

95% confidence interval 94.34 (95% CI 92.7 to 96.0) 92.14 (95% CI 90.6 to 93.7)

Cut off ≥113.15 ≥114.07

Table 4. Norms for dimensions of DERS.

Gender Nonacceptance Goals Impulse Awareness Strategies Clarity DERS total

Male ≥20.7 ≥17.65 ≥19.86 ≥22.28 ≥26.56 ≥17.20 ≥113.15

female ≥21.16 ≥18.03 ≥20.61 ≥20.93 ≥26.35 ≥17.29 ≥114.07

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 E. O. Akinnawo et al.

consistency. However, the internal consistencies of the subscales showed a good

and adequate internal consistency, unidimensionality and homogeneity of the
construct (Bland & Altman, 1997; Streiner, 2003) for all items in the subscales
except for lack of emotional clarity which reported (α = .54). This indication
showed that the clarity items should be used with caution among Nigerian sam-
ples (Deepa-Enlighten, 2017) or adapted to suit the population. The explanation
for this could be due to social-cultural differences.
Again we found that the items that measure awareness reported weak corrected
item-total correlation. For instance, it was observed that three of the six items that
measure awareness (items 10, 17 and 34) reported negative corrected item-total
correlation, while two other items had values of less than .20. According to Pope
(2022), negative items-total correlation values are major red flags. Statistically,
item-total values below .19 are indicators that the questions are not discriminating
well and thus are highly ambiguous and confusing to the participants (Pope, 2022).
The likely result of including the items measuring awareness in calculating the
Cronbach’s alpha of DERS is a slight reduction in the overall internal consistency
of the scale. In other words, if the items used to measure awareness were to be
dropped, the internal consistency of the DERS would be stronger. This finding
supports some previous results (Osborne, Michonski, Sayrs, Welch, & Anderson,
2017; Hallion, Steinman, Tolin, & Diefenbach 2018). This finding suggests that
construct items of emotional awareness are not strong enough in measuring emo-
tional regulation (Hallion et al., 2018) among Nigerian samples as well as other
populations on which similar results have been observed. Several studies, includ-
ing Italian undergraduate students (Giromini et al., 2012), chronic pain patients
(Kökönyei et al., 2014), adults with severe mental illness (Fowler et al., 2014), and
adult outpatients receiving Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) (Fowler et al.,
2014), have found poor fit for a six-factor solution in a variety of populations
(Osborne et al., 2017). In general, these studies suggest that a revised five-factor
model with the Awareness subscale and items removed provides a better match to
the data (Bardeen et al., 2012; Fowler et al., 2014; Osborne et al., 2017).
Finally, the obtained norm for the Nigerian sample is a novel addition to the
scale as the developer, and previous users of DERS did not indicate a norm for
the scale. The norm derived from this study also established the gender sensitiv-
ity of the scale. According to Goubet and Chrysikou (2019), the effect of gender
on emotion regulation has not been given adequate study. Gender differences in
emotion regulation may explain gender differences in clinical presentation in
some psychopathologies (Hyde et al., 2008; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2012). Thus estab-
lishing norms in measures such as DERS is essential for clinical practice in addi-
tion to its usefulness in research.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations

Based on the findings, the 36-item DERS showed good internal reliability and a
valid measure of emotional regulation. This analysis indicates that DERS is reli-

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E. O. Akinnawo et al.

able and valid for the Nigerian population. Also, the items that measure aware-
ness of emotion had a weak corrected item-total correlation. However, the items
that measure the Awareness dimension did not discriminate well and thus were
ambiguous and confusing to participants. Hence authors recommend that the
awareness subscale be re-worked to fit with the construct of emotional regula-
tion or expunged altogether from the scale. Norms for the composite and di-
mensions of DERS were established, and DERS is observed to be gender-sensitive
based on this.
The DERS is recommended for use in clinical settings, especially among people
with emotional disorders such as anxiety disorders, mood disorders, obsessive-
compulsive disorders, psychotic disorders, eating disorders, conduct disorders
and trauma-related disorders to assess emotion regulation. Also, the associations
between emotion regulation, impulsivity and suicidal behaviours can be properly
assessed using the DERS. Using the DERS could help make the proper diagnosis
and the correct treatment procedure. Also, researchers’ DERS can be used in re-
search settings to provide information on the factors of Emotion Dysregulation
across people in the general public and clinical settings.

Ethical Approval
Human subjects were used in this work; hence research ethics for human sub-
jects were followed in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. The Internal
Research Ethics Committee of Redeemer’s University in Nigeria reviewed the
research purpose and recommended procedures. The National Code of Health
Research Ethics and the Nigerian National Health Research Ethics Committee
(NHREC) do not apply to this type of research.

Informed Consent
Prior to administering the instruments, respondents’ consent was requested.
Respondents were permitted to quit at any point throughout the survey because
participation was optional and confidentiality was guaranteed.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this pa-
per.

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