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Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and emotional problems in 9–11-year-old children

The development of an instrument

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Abstract

The present study describes the development of the child version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ-k). Like the adult version of the CERQ, the CERQ-k measures nine cognitive emotion regulation strategies that children may use after having experienced negative life events. The original CERQ was considered suitable for adults and adolescents aged 12 and older. The CERQ-k was constructed for children of 9, 10 and 11 years of age. The present study describes some psychometric properties of the CERQ-k and relationships with measures of depression, fearfulness and worry among 717 primary school youngsters. Principal component analyses confirmed the allocation of most items to subscales, while Cronbach’s alphas of most subscales exceeded 0.70. Cognitive emotion regulation strategies were found to be related to the reporting of symptoms of depression, fearfulness and worry, which provided some evidence for criterion-related validity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Clinical and Health Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Nadia Garnefski PhD & Vivian Kraaij

  2. Dept. of Developmental Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Carolien Rieffe & Francine Jellesma

  3. Dept. of Developmental Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Mark Meerum Terwogt

  4. Faculty of Social and behavioural Sciences, Division of Clinical and Health Psychology, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Nadia Garnefski PhD

Authors
  1. Nadia Garnefski PhD
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  2. Carolien Rieffe
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  3. Francine Jellesma
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  4. Mark Meerum Terwogt
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  5. Vivian Kraaij
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Correspondence to Nadia Garnefski PhD.

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Garnefski, N., Rieffe, C., Jellesma, F. et al. Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and emotional problems in 9–11-year-old children. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 16, 1–9 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-006-0562-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-006-0562-3

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