Can the catastrophizing interview technique be used to develop understanding of childhood worry?
Background: The current research-base into childhood worry is extremely limited, in part owing to the lack of appropriately validated measures of worry suitable for use with children. Although some adult measures of worry have successfully been adapted for use with children, as of yet no measure suitable for use within an experimental paradigm has been developed, meaning that the majority of the existing research is based on correlational designs and therefore does not allow exploration of causative relationships between childhood worry and other factors. Aim: This thesis aimed to explore the use of the catastrophizing interview technique with children, with the goal of validating this technique as an experimental measure of childhood worry. Method: A mixed methodology was employed, using both single group correlation and between group comparisons. Additionally, a qualitative aspect to the design allowed greater exploration of the interview responses given by participants. The data from 88 participants aged 9 – 11 was used for the analysis. Participants completed a number of interviewer-assisted measures of worry, verbal reasoning, verbal fluency and tendency to respond in a socially desirable manner, before completing two catastrophizing tasks. Results: Limited evidence was found for a relationship between the catastrophizing interview responses and tendency to worry. However, when confounding variables such as verbal ability were controlled, a relationship between the number of steps generated using the interview and tendency to worry was found. Additionally, high worriers were more likely to respond in an extreme or circular manner, than low worriers. Discussion: Although this study found limited support for using the catastrophizing interview technique with children, there were a number of methodological issues with the study design that may have affected results. Given the need for a greater understanding of the processes of childhood worry, further exploration of using the catastrophizing interview technique is warranted.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations