A Common Metric for the Emotion Dysregulation Inventory From Early Childhood Through Adolescence

The Emotion Dysregulation Inventory (EDI) and its young child version (EDI-YC) are widely used informant-report measures for assessing emotion dysregulation. However, scores are not directly comparable owing to different age ranges (EDI: 6-17 years; EDI-YC: 2-5 years), limiting longitudinal research. This study used item response theory (IRT) to link EDI and EDI-YC scores, creating a common metric spanning early childhood through adolescence in general and neurodevelopmental populations.

Archival data from original calibration and validation studies were analyzed. The EDI sample included 1,755 clinical participants (aged 4-20; 21% female) and 1,000 general population youths (aged 6-17; 49% female). The EDI-YC sample included 1,369 clinical participants (aged 2-5; 27% female) and 768 general population young children (aged 2-5; 51% female). A nonequivalent groups with anchor test design was implemented. Both measures assess reactivity and dysphoria. Separate unidimensional IRT co-calibrations were conducted for each subscale using a fixed-parameter approach.

Co-calibration revealed near-perfect correlations between EDI and EDI-YC metrics in both the general population (reactivity: ρ = 0.999; dysphoria: ρ = 0.995) and the clinical samples (reactivity: ρ = 0.999; dysphoria: ρ = 0.997).

Successful linking of the EDI and EDI-YC supports the interpretation of raw scores on a common metric. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of IRT-based linking as a practical tool for longitudinal research and clinical monitoring of emotion dysregulation, pending further validation of anchor item invariance across the full age range.

We worked to ensure that the study questionnaires were prepared in an inclusive way. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science. We actively worked to promote sex and gender balance in our author group.