A Common Metric for the Emotion Dysregulation Inventory From Early Childhood Through Adolescence
Abstract
Objective: 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. Method: 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. Results: 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). Conclusion: 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. Diversity & Inclusion Statement: 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.