An analytical model is presented for assessing the performance of the bit-error-rate (BER) in the differential m-level phase shift keying (m-PSK) transmission systems, where the influence of equalization enhanced phase noise (EEPN) has been considered. Theoretical analysis has been carried out in differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK), differential 8-PSK (D8PSK), and differential 16-PSK (D16PSK) optical transmission systems. The influence of EEPN on the BER performance, in term of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), are investigated for different fiber dispersion, LO laser linewidths, symbol rates, and modulation formats. Our analytical model achieves a good agreement with previously reported EEPN induced BER floors, and can give an accurate prediction for the DQPSK system, and a leading-order approximation for the D8PSK and the D16PSK systems.