Evidence of validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-18 in Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African emerging adults living in the United States.

Abstract

Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (Arab/MENA) individuals are regularly unaccounted for in research because they are conflated with the racial category "White." The systematic underrepresentation of Arab/MENA individuals in research persists, despite the fact that Arab/MENA individuals experience stigma, discrimination, and structural barriers that separate them from their White peers and contribute to disparities in mental health and well-being (Awad et al., 2021). Further, the lack of widespread inclusion of an Arab/MENA racial category has created assumptions about the generalizability of psychological constructs, measures, and treatments for Arab/MENA people, despite well-known cultural differences. The present study explored the validity of a widely used emotion regulation measure, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-18, in an Arab/MENA emerging adult sample (Mage = 21.8, SD = 3.02), invariance across sex assigned at birth, differences in latent scores for religious identity, and associations with mental health and well-being. Results support the original six-factor model and are invariant across males and females. The implications of these findings for supporting assessment and treatment of Arab/MENA individuals, and the importance of including Arab/MENA as a racial category in research, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).