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

Objective

The Emotion Dysregulation Inventory (EDI) and its young-child version (EDI-YC) are widely used informant-report measures for assessing emotion dysregulation (ED). However, scores are not directly comparable due to differing 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 (Age 4-20, 21% female) and 1,000 general population youth (Age 6-17, 49% female). The EDI-YC sample included 1,369 clinical participants (Age 2-5, 27% female) and 768 general population youth (Age 2-5, 51% female). A non-equivalent groups with anchor test (NEAT) 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 = .999; Dysphoria ρ = .995) and clinical samples (Reactivity ρ = .999; Dysphoria ρ = .997).

Conclusion

The 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 ED, pending further validation of anchor item invariance across the full age range.