Psychometric properties of a short version of the rumination scale related to an event in Chilean population affected by highly stressful events

Abstract

The Event-related Rumination Scale (ERRI) is an instrument designed to evaluate intrusive and deliberate repetitive thoughts after an important stressor. The purpose of this study is to analyze its psychometric properties in Chilean population exposed to different types of stressors. The instrument was applied to 281 adults, inhabitants of the province of Concepción, Chile, and who acknowledged having experienced a highly stressful event in the last three years. From the result of an exploratory factor analysis, the scale was reduced from the 20 elements of the original scale (10 intrusive rumination and 10 deliberate rumination) to 12 items (7 intrusive rumination and 5 deliberate rumination). This short version showed high internal consistency for the total scale and for each subscale. It also showed evidence of construct validity, when the two factors were found in the factor analysis, and evidence of criterion validity, when both factors were positively related to the subjective severity of the event and when it was observed that deliberate rumination predicted posttraumatic growth and intrusive rumination predicted posttraumatic symptomatology. The results indicate that the ERRI is a useful instrument to investigate and evaluate the rumination processes related to a stressful event in the Chilean population.