Katrien Verstraeten

The child version of the pain catastrophizing scale (PCS-C): a preliminary validation.

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.

Specificity of worry and rumination in the development of anxiety and depressive symptoms in children

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.

Inhibitory Control Mediates the Relationship Between Depressed Mood and Overgeneral Memory Recall in Children

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 ones 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.

Acute traumatic stroke: a case of bow hunter's stroke in a child

Acute traumatic stroke of the cerebellum is rarely seen in children. In adults, chiropractical manipulation, yoga exercises, bow hunting and cervical trauma have all been associated with vertebrobasillar damage and subsequent stroke due to cerebellar infarction. We present a case of bow hunters stroke in a child. An 11-year-old boy developed deep coma one day after minor occipital head injury due to an infarct in the left cerebellum and ipsilateral medulla oblongata. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) showed hypoperfusion of the left vertebral artery and occlusion of the posterior and anterior inferior cerebellar arteries (PICA and AICA respectively).

The Mediational Role of Responses to Positive Affect in the Association Between Temperament and (Hypo)manic Symptoms in Children

The present study focused on (hypo)manic symptoms and their relations to temperament and rumination on positive affect (R-PA). As predicted, R-PA (including dampening, emotion-focus and self-focus) was associated with (hypo)manic symptoms, with high levels of dampening, emotion-focus and self-focus predicting higher levels of (hypo)manic symptoms. R-PA also contributed to the prediction of depressive symptoms over and above rumination on negative affect (including brooding and reflection), with high levels of brooding and dampening and low levels of emotion-focus predicting higher levels of depressive symptoms. Aspects of temperament (high PA, high NA, low EC and PAxNA) were also associated with (hypo)manic symptoms. Ruminative response styles were also predicted by temperament. Finally, mediational analyses showed that all R-PA scales were mediators of the PA-(hypo)mania relation.