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A Kid-Friendly Tool to Assess Rumination in Children and Early Adolescents: Relationships with Mother Psychopathology and Family Functioning

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Abstract

The early identification of ruminative processes in children and early adolescents is particularly important to prevent the development of a stable ruminative style in later stages of development. The present study first aimed at validating a child-friendly tool, Kid Rumination Interview (KRI), to be used in a sample aged 7–12 years (n = 100; 50% females). Second, we hypothesized that maternal depression, family functioning and participants’ emotion regulation skills would be associated with children’ levels of rumination. Factor analysis on KRI scores yielded two main factors: personal life-related rumination and school-related rumination. Older and female participants showed higher tendencies to ruminate about school issues compared to their younger and male counterparts. A low-to-moderate correlation emerged between school-related rumination and child/early adolescent’s emotion regulation capacities. Mothers’ depressive rumination and mothers’ depressive symptoms were positively associated with children/early adolescents’ rumination about personal life and rumination about school issues. Conversely, an adequate and positive family functioning was negatively correlated with both school-related rumination and rumination about personal life. Hierarchical regression analyses pointed to a crucial role of maternal rumination and familiar rigidity in both types of rumination. Personal life-related rumination was also specifically predicted by maternal depression and family enmeshment, whereas school-related rumination was significantly associated with children/early adolescents’ emotional control and gender. Overall, the KRI appears as a promising tool to assess rumination in children/early adolescents. Results suggests partially different pathways to specific forms of ruminative thoughts.

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Funding

Cristina Ottaviani was funded by the Italian Ministry of Health (GR-2010-2312442).

Author Contributions

R.B., D.M., F.L., and C.O.: designed and executed the study and wrote the paper. R.B., D.M., A.L., N.P., and C.O.: collaborated with the design and writing of the study. R.B., S.I., and C.O.: analyzed the data and wrote part of the results. R.B., A.L., N.P., F.L., and C.O.: collaborated with the design and writing of the study. R.B., D.M., A.L., N.P., F.L., S.I., and C.O.: collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Roberto Baiocco, Demetria Manzi, Antonia Lonigro, Fiorenzo Laghi & Salvatore Ioverno

  2. Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy

    Nicola Petrocchi & Cristina Ottaviani

  3. Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Cristina Ottaviani

Authors
  1. Roberto Baiocco
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  2. Demetria Manzi
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  3. Antonia Lonigro
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  4. Nicola Petrocchi
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  5. Fiorenzo Laghi
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  6. Salvatore Ioverno
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  7. Cristina Ottaviani
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Correspondence to Roberto Baiocco.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Children Rumination Interview (female version)

Situation number 2. A picture portraying a child with friends (i.e., being teased by her mates).

Vignette stimulus

figure a

Situation number 2. Time 1: a few hours after.

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figure b

Situation number 2. Time 2: before going to sleep.

Vignette stimulus

figure c

Situation number 2. Time 3: the next day.

Vignette stimulus

figure d

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Baiocco, R., Manzi, D., Lonigro, A. et al. A Kid-Friendly Tool to Assess Rumination in Children and Early Adolescents: Relationships with Mother Psychopathology and Family Functioning. J Child Fam Stud 26, 2703–2715 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0784-7

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