THE EMOTION REGULATION QUESTIONNAIRE: ERQ-9 FACTOR STRUCTURE AND MEASUREMENT INVARIANCE IN AUSTRALIAN AND CANADIAN COMMUNITY SAMPLES

Research into emotion regulation has accelerated since the development of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Despite wide use of the ERQ, few psychometric validity studies have been undertaken beyond student samples. The present study reports a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and measurement invariance study of the ERQ. Model comparisons were made with the revised nine-item version using adult community samples from Australia (N = 233, M = 37.42 years), and Canada (N = 247, M = 25.94 years). Results from both samples indicated poor model fit for the original ERQ, but good model fit and item invariance (for gender and education level) for the ERQ-9. The ERQ-9 predicted marginally greater variance in depression symptoms relative to the ERQ. Findings are consistent with recent research suggesting that the ERQ-9 may have improved clinical utility in assessing domains of emotion regulation. Further validation studies of the ERQ in non-student samples are recommended.