Catastrophizing about pain has emerged as a critical variable in how we understand adjustment to pain in both adults and children. In children, however, current methods of measuring catastrophizing about pain rely on brief subscales of larger coping inventories. Therefore, we adapted the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (Sullivan et al., 1995) for use in children, and investigated its construct and predictive validity in two studies. Study 1 revealed that in a community sample (400 boys, 414 girls; age range between 8 years 9 months and 16 years 5 months) the Pain Catastrophizing Scale for Children (PCS-C) assesses the independent but strongly related dimensions of rumination, magnification and helplessness that are subsumed under the higher-order construct of pain catastrophizing. This three factor structure is invariant across age groups and gender. Study 2 revealed in a clinical sample of children with chronic or recurrent pain (23 girls, 20 boys; age range between 8 years 3 months and 16 years 6 months) that catastrophizing about pain had a unique contribution in predicting pain intensity beyond gender and age, and in predicting disability, beyond gender, age and pain intensity. The function of pain catastrophizing is discussed in terms of the facilitation of escape from pain, and of the communication of distress to significant others.

The present study examined the relations between temperament, ruminative response style and depressive symptoms both cross-sectionally and prospectively (1 year follow-up) in a community sample of 304 seventh- through tenth-graders. First, higher levels of negative affectivity (NA), lower levels of positive affectivity (PA) and lower levels of effortful control (EC) were found to be associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Second, the association between NA and PA on the one hand and depressive symptoms on the other was significantly moderated by level of EC (low PA and high NA are associated with depressive symptoms only if EC is low) and these relations were moderated by sex in the cross-sectional data. In the prospective data, T1 depressive symptoms and PA predicted T2 depressive symptoms; with EC approaching significance. Third, rumination also predicted T1 as well as T2 depressive symptoms. Finally, support was found for a model of moderated mediation: higher levels of NA were associated with higher levels of ruminative response style, which was in turn related to more depressive symptoms but only in individuals with low EC and this was true for the cross-sectional as well as the prospective data albeit with noteworthy differences in pattern. These findings confirm and extend previous findings on the associations between temperament, response styles and depression in adolescence and, as such, add to the growing body of research providing support for the applicability of cognitive vulnerability theories to depression in younger populations.

OBJECTIVES AND DESIGN. Rumination (specifically Brooding) is thought to be an important vulnerability factor for depressive symptoms whereas Worry is believed to be involved in anxiety. The present study sought to clarify the extent to which these two types of perseverative cognition show symptom specificity or generality in their associations with depression and anxiety. Additionally, reactive (negative affectivity, NA; positive affectivity, PA) and self-regulatory aspects of temperament (effortful control) were considered as vulnerability factors for depression and anxiety and were also studied in relation to rumination and worry. METHODS. Self-report questionnaires tapping Rumination, Worry, temperament, depression, and anxiety were administered to a community sample of 138 children aged 9-13. RESULTS. Brooding (but not Reflection) and Worry were significantly associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms on the one hand and with the temperamental construct of NA on the other hand. However, consistent with a model predicting symptom-specific relations, only Brooding significantly mediated the association between NA and depressive symptoms, whereas only Worry was a mediator of the relation between NA and anxiety symptoms. Finally, among self-regulatory aspects of temperament, activation control and inhibitory control were uniquely associated with depressive symptoms, whereas attentional control was only associated with anxiety symptoms. CONCLUSIONS. This study supports high NA as a vulnerability factor for the development of depressed and anxious symptoms in children, but these symptoms develop through differential paths.

It has been well established that depressed mood is related to overgeneral memory recall (OGM), which refers to a relative difficulty in retrieving specific information from one's autobiographical memory (AM). The present study examined whether OGM is also related to depressed mood in children and whether lack of inhibitory control mediates this relationship. One hundred thirty-five children (ages 9-13) completed measures assessing depressive symptoms, AM specificity, and inhibitory control. The results showed that depressed mood is positively associated with OGM and that inhibitory control mediated this relationship.

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