Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention

The DERS was developed to assess difficulties within the following dimensions of emotion regulation: (1) awareness and understanding of emotions; (2) acceptance of emotions; (3) the ability to engage in goal-directed behavior, and refrain from impulsive behavior, when experiencing negative emotions; and (4) access to emotion regulation strategies perceived as effective. The scale consists of 36-items which statements should be rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). The scale is composed by 6 dimensions:

Nonacceptance of emotional responses: 11, 12, 21, 23, 25, 29;

Difficulty engaging in Goal-directed behaviour: 13, 18, 20R, 26, 33;

Impulse control difficulties: 3, 14, 19, 24R, 27, 32;

Lack of emotional awareness: 2R, 6R, 8R, 10R, 17R, 34R;

Limited access to emotion regulation strategies: 15, 16, 22R, 28, 30, 31, 35, 36;

Lack of emotional clarity: 1R, 4, 5, 7R, 9 (R= Reverse-scored items).

After recoding the inverse items it is possible to obtain a total score (adding all the 36 items) or a score for each subscale. Higher scores indicated greater difficulties in emotion regulation. The Portuguese version of DERS showed a good level of internal consistency for the total scale, an adequate temporal stability for all subscales and good convergent and discriminant validities.