title: Psychometric Properties of the Grief Cognitions Questionnaire for Children (GCQ-C).
abstract: Negative thinking is seen as an important mediating factor in the development of prolonged grief disorder (PGD), a syndrome encompassing debilitating symptoms of grief. No measure of specific grief related cognitions is available yet. Based on an adult measure of negative thinking in adults we developed a questionnaire for children, the Grief Cognitions Questionnaire for Children (GCQ-C). This study investigated several psychometric properties of the GCQ-C. Both reliability and validity were investigated in this study, in which hundred fifty-one children and adolescents (aged 8-18 years) participated. Findings showed that items of the GCQ-C represented one underlying dimension. Furthermore, the internal consistency and temporal stability were found to be adequate. Third, the findings supported the concurrent validity (e.g., significant positive correlations with self-report indices of PGD, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder), convergent and divergent validity of the GCQ-C. This study provides further evidence for the importance of negative thinking in PGD in children and adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, PO Box 80140, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mariken
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Spuij
authors.affiliation: Department of Pedagogical Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Prinzie
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Arq Psychotrauma Expert Group, Diemen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Boelen
keywords: Adolescents; Assessment; Children; Grief cognitions; Prolonged-grief-disorder