Emotion dysregulation in older people: validity and reliability of an 8-item version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale.

OBJECTIVES: The abbreviated 16-item version of the Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16) is widely used to assess individuals' perceived challenges in regulating their emotions, a central aspect of psychological symptoms commonly experienced in old age. However, its psychometric properties have yet to be tested in this population. Furthermore, a shorter version of the DERS-16 could further minimize the assessment burden on older individuals. Thus, we aimed to test the DERS-16's psychometric performance and determine if any items were redundant to develop a psychometrically sound shorter version. METHODS: We enrolled 302 Portuguese older adults (Mage = 75.22; SD = 8.99 years) in a cross-sectional study. RESULTS: Exploratory factor analyses indicated a one-factor structure and a four-factor solution with eight items (69.3%-81.9% of the variance observed). The four-factor-8-item solution presented an interpretable structure and demonstrated good reliability values (> 0.70) and construct validity with the Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Eight-Item Geriatric Depression Scale, and Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (r = 0.66, 0.40, 0.52; p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The robust psychometric properties of DERS-8 make it a valuable tool for clinical and longitudinal studies, facilitating targeted interventions in older adults and allowing for precise emotion dysregulation screening.

Validation of the geriatric sleep questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: Assessing sleep in later life is essential for diagnosing and treating sleep problems and their consequences. We aimed to test a short questionnaire specifically designed to assess the subjective sleep quality in older people, the Geriatric Sleep Questionnaire (GSQ). METHOD: The GSQ was validated in a Portuguese sample of older people (N = 443; 65-100 years; M = 80.02; SD = 6.95). We analyzed reliability, factor validity, convergent validity with other theoretical similar constructs, discriminant validity with a theoretically divergent measure, and predictive power to detect sleep problems (ROC analysis). RESULTS: A six-item version was obtained with good reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.79), and adequate convergent and divergent validity (p < 0.01). ROC analysis revealed a sensitivity of 80.0% and a specificity of 66.7% in detecting sleep problems with a cutoff point of 16 (AUC = 0.72). Older people in social care, low education, and living in rural areas reported worse sleep quality. CONCLUSION: The GSQ-6 is a brief instrument with good psychometric characteristics to assess the subjective sleep quality in older people. The GSQ-6 seems to be a valuable tool for future investigations on the relationship of sleep quality with mental health and well-being in older people.