Validity and reliability of emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ) in Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents and young adults

Chinese adolescents and young adults who migrate from rural to urban areas have many emotional problems such as low self-esteem, high levels of anxiety and depression due to the striking social and cultural differences between rural and urban China. To effectively assess their emotion regulation and promote their mental health and growth, this study aimed to explore the psychometric properties of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) in Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents and young adults. A total of 397 rural-to-urban migrant adolescents and young adults (age 16.78 ± 1.92 years old) were enrolled. Two common factors were obtained in exploratory factor analysis (EFA), which is similar to both the original English version and the Chinese version for college students. Besides, the ERQ was significantly correlated with subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and academic emotion, which indicated the criterion validity of the ERQ is good ( r = 0.17 ~ 0.41, all p s < 0.01). The Cronbach’s α of the ERQ total scores and subscales were acceptable (0.73 ~ 0.82), indicating that the ERQ had acceptable to excellent levels of internal consistency reliability. Therefore, ERQ is a valid and reliable measure to assess the emotion regulation of rural-to-urban migrant adolescents and young adults in China.