Psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Perth Emotional Regulation Competency Inventory

The Perth Emotional Regulation Competency Inventory (PERCI) was designed to assess healthy and unhealthy behavioral responses to maladaptive conditions and stressful life events. The current study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the PERCI in a sample of Iranian students.

In order to evaluate the psychometric properties of PERCI, 379 (including 201 males and 178 females) students of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS) were selected using the available sampling method (between June 2018 and Feb 2019). Subjects completed the PERCI, Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Thereafter, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, convergent and divergent validity, as well as confirmatory factor analysis, were performed using Lisrel (version 8.5) and SPSS (version 25) software packages.

The participants' mean age was 25.31±7.26 years, and the majority of them (%53) were female. The result of internal consistency of the total score and its subscales using Cronbach's alpha was calculated to be in the range of 0.66-0.94. The results of factor analysis supported the eight-factor structure of the PERCI for positive (controlling experience, inhibiting behavior, activating behavior, and tolerating emotions) and negative (controlling experience, inhibiting behavior, activating behavior, and tolerating emotions) emotion regulation strategies in the sample of Iranian students (RMSEA=0.07, CFI=0.90, NFI=0.89). Furthermore, the results pointed out that the positive factors of the PERCI had a positive and significant relationship with positive cognitive emotion regulation strategies (P<0.05), and it displayed a negative and significant correlation with difficulties in emotion regulation, anxiety, and worry (P<0.05).

In general, the results of the present study indicated the appropriate psychometric properties of the Persian version of PERCI. This inventory can be used in treatment interventions and future studies to access adaptive and maladaptive reactions.