Validation of the Child version of the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire of repetitive negative thinking in young people with diagnosed depressive and anxiety disorders.

Caitlin Hitchcock,Vanessa E Cobham,Renee L Brown

doi:10.1111/bjc.12336

Abstract

This paper sought to provide the first validation of a transdiagnostic measure of repetitive negative thinking – the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire‐Child version (PTQ‐C) – in young people diagnosed with anxiety and depressive disorders. Participants (N = 114) were 11‐ to 17‐year‐olds with complex and comorbid presentations seeking treatment through Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Confirmatory factor analyses best supported a three‐factor model for the PTQ‐C; however, hypotheses of both perfect and close fit were rejected, and a subsequent bifactor model suggested minimal unique variance for each subscale. Results demonstrated good internal consistency, convergent validity and divergent validity for the total score and three PTQ‐S subscales: core characteristics, perceived unproductiveness, and consumed mental capacity of negative repetitive thinking. PTQ‐C scores did not account for additional variance in anxiety symptoms once worry was considered, indicating that retention of a content‐specific measure may be warranted in clinical samples. Findings emphasize the importance of validating clinically relevant measures which were developed with subclinical populations in samples with diagnosed mental health disorders.Practitioner points Validates Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire in anxious and depressed youth.Support for convergent and divergent validity, and internal consistency.Results suggest measure is appropriate for complex and comorbid presentations.

Highlights

Accurate identification of transdiagnostic cognitive processes which drive symptoms of multiple disorders is critical to enabling process-focussed treatment of emotional disturbance
The study represents the first validation of the Perseverative Thinking QuestionnaireChild version (PTQ-C) in young people with diagnosed anxiety and depressive disorders
Excellent internal consistency and good convergent and divergent validity were observed for the total Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire-Child version (PTQ-C) score and all three subscales across the highly comorbid sample

Summary

Introduction

Accurate identification of transdiagnostic cognitive processes which drive symptoms of multiple disorders is critical to enabling process-focussed treatment of emotional disturbance. We seek to validate a transdiagnostic measure of repetitive negative thinking for young people for the first time in a sample diagnosed with a variety of anxiety and depressive disorders. There are currently two transdiagnostic self-report measures that have been developed to assess repetitive negative thinking in young people, both of which have been previously validated in school-based samples. Validation of the PTQ-C in young people with diagnosed anxiety and depressive disorders is thereby necessary to indicate its clinical utility and enable accurate assessment of a proposed mechanism of transdiagnostic psychological intervention. If repetitive negative thinking is truly a transdiagnostic process in which assessment of context is unnecessary, content-specific measures of worry and rumination would be expected to account for minimal variance in anxiety and depressive symptoms, respectively, once variance attributable to repetitive negative thinking had been removed

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