Persian Version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Factor Structure, Reliability and Validity

The main purpose of this research was to develop a Persian version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ, Gross & John, 2003) and to examine its factor structure, reliability and validity.
The English version of the ERQ was translated and back-translated prior to its administration to 540 (260 females) Iranian participants recruited from the Kharazmi and Zanjan Universities with an age range from 18 to 36.The reliability of the Persian version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ-P) was assessed via internal consistency, item-rest correlations and test-retest reliability. Also, a principal component analysis with Varimax-rotation, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations between subscales and criterion validity was applied.
The results showed that the Persian version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ-P) had good psychometric properties. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis supported the original ERQ two factor model (factor loadings ranged from .32 to .67). All of the item scores significantly correlated with the total score of the corresponding subscales (r = .46 to r = .75). The reliability of the two ERQ-P subscales was satisfactory as indicated by the level of internal consistency (.81 to .91) and the high test-retest correlations (.51 to .77) across a 5-week interval. With respect to the criterion validity, ERQ-P subscales were uniquely associated with affective outcomes. As a result, suppression predicted lower emotional well-being while reappraisal predicted higher emotional well-being.
Taken together, the results of the current study indicates that ERQ-P is a reliable and valid measure of emotion regulation strategies that could be used in research and clinical situations.