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Is irritability multidimensional: Psychometrics of The Irritability and Dysregulation of Emotion Scale (TIDES-13)

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Abstract

Irritability is a common, impairing, and potentially multifaceted manifestation of psychopathology. We designed The Irritability and Dysregulation of Emotion Scale (TIDES-13) to determine whether various expressions of irritability in children and youth form multiple subdimensions with distinct correlates. We administered parent-report (n = 3875, mean age = 8.9) and youth self-report (n = 579, mean age = 15.1) versions of TIDES-13 in a population and community-based sample. We conducted exploratory/confirmatory factor analyses and regression analyses to examine the dimensionality of TIDES-13 and the associations of the scale with age, gender, anxiety, depression, ODD, ADHD traits, and the Affective Reactivity Index (ARI). A higher-order model with a global irritability dimension and four subdimensions, including proneness to anger (PA), internalized negative emotional reactivity (iNER), externalized negative emotional reactivity (eNER), and reactive aggression (RA), showed good to excellent fit in both parent-report and self-report. The global irritability dimension showed excellent internal reliability (⍵Total; parent-report = 0.97, ⍵Total; self-report = 0.95), explained a majority of the item variance (⍵Hierarchical; parent-report = 0.94, ⍵Hierarchical; self-report = 0.90), and was moderately correlated with the ARI (rparent = 0.68, rself = 0.77). Subdimensions PA, eNER, and RA were negatively associated with age in males, whereas iNER was positively associated with age in females. Traits of ODD and ADHD were associated primarily with the global irritability dimension, whereas iNER was strongly associated with anxiety and depression traits over and above the global irritability dimension. Our results support a unidimensional interpretation of irritability in a population sample. However, limited evidence of specific behavioral, age, and sex correlates with particular irritability subdimensions may warrant further investigation.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request (including a study outline), subject to review.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (R.J.S., MOP‐93696 and P.D.A., MOP‐106573) and the Alberta Innovates Translational Health Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health (P.D.A.). The statistical expert on the manuscript is Dr. Annie Dupuis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Andrew S. Dissanayake, Christie L. Burton, Jennifer Crosbie, Russell J. Schachar & Tomer Levy

  2. Department of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Annie Dupuis & Tomer Levy

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jennifer Crosbie & Russell J. Schachar

  4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, The Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Paul D. Arnold

  5. Behavior Regulation Service, Geha Mental Health Center, Petach-Tikva, Israel

    Tomer Levy

  6. Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Tomer Levy

  7. Neurosciences and Mental Health/Psychiatry, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Christie L. Burton, Jennifer Crosbie & Russell J. Schachar

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  1. Andrew S. Dissanayake
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  2. Annie Dupuis
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  3. Paul D. Arnold
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  6. Russell J. Schachar
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  7. Tomer Levy
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Contributions

Levy led the preliminary development of the scale. All authors were involved in the conceptualization and design of the study. Crosbie, Schachar, Arnold and Burton implemented the study and acquired the data. Dupuis was the main statistical consultant while Dissanayake conducted the analyses. Dissanayake, Dupuis, Burton, Arnold, Schachar, Crosbie and Levy interpreted the findings. Dissanayake wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors reviewed, edited and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Russell J. Schachar.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Statistical Expert: Annie Dupuis.

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Dissanayake, A.S., Dupuis, A., Arnold, P.D. et al. Is irritability multidimensional: Psychometrics of The Irritability and Dysregulation of Emotion Scale (TIDES-13). Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-023-02350-1

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