Spanish adaptation and psychometric properties of the child version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire

Mireia Orgilés; Alexandra Morales; Iván Fernández-Martínez; Juan Manuel Ortigosa-Quiles; José P Espada

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0201656

Spanish adaptation and psychometric properties of the child version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire

PLoS One. 2018 Aug 2;13(8):e0201656. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0201656. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Mireia Orgilés¹, Alexandra Morales¹, Iván Fernández-Martínez¹, Juan Manuel Ortigosa-Quiles², José P Espada¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health Psychology, Miguel Hernández University, Elche, Spain.
² Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.

Abstract

Background: The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for children (CERQ-k) is a useful clinical and research tool to identify cognitive patterns of emotion regulation that predict the presence of emotional symptomatology. This study aimed to validate the Spanish version of the CERQ-k (the CERQ-Sk) using a sample of children from Spain, which is not available.

Methods: The sample consisted of 582 children (48.6% girls) aged between 7 and 12 years (Mage = 9.49; SD = 1.2) recruited from Alicante, Spain. Cognitive emotion regulation strategies, anxiety and depressive symptomatology were self-reported evaluated. Factor structure, internal consistency, temporal stability with the Spanish version for children were examined. Convergent validity was evaluated using Spearman correlations to examine the relationships between the CERQ-k and measures of anxiety (trait anxiety subscale of STAI-C) and depression (CDI).

Results: The Spanish version of CERQ-Sk had the same nine factors proposed in the original version. Ordinal alpha of the total scale was excellent (.88), and moderate indexes were found for each subscale (.56 to .75). The 8-week test-retest coefficient was adequate for the total scale (ICC = .74) and moderate for the subscales (.54 to .70). Evidence of convergent validity was provided through correlations with the CDI (depression) and trait anxiety subscale of the STAI-C (anxiety). Cognitive strategies such as Rumination, self-blame, catastrophizing, and other-blame were significantly and positively related to depressive and anxiety symptoms. Moreover, positive refocusing and planning seemed to act as strategies that have a positive effect on the prevention of depression in children.

Conclusions: Results suggest that the CERQ-Sk is a reliable and valid tool that can be useful for researchers and clinicians to identify maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation patterns that may increase the risk of emotional problems, and orient treatment and prevention of mental health problems in children from Spanish-speaking countries.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Physiological
Anxiety
Child
Cognition*
Emotions*
Female
Humans
Male
Psychometrics*
Spain
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of Spain (PSI2014-56446-P). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.