The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). Psychometric evaluation of a German adaptation

Background: The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ; Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinnhoven, 2001) consists of nine dimensions measuring cognitive emotion regulation. Objectives: A German adaptation was developed and its structure and reliability were tested. Furthermore its relationships with depressive symptoms and anxiety sensitivity were investigated. Method: The study was designed as a postal questionnaire survey. Of 3000 randomly contacted persons, 423 returned the questionnaire. The final sample comprised 414 participants. Anxiety sensitivity and depressive symptoms were measured with the ASI-3 and the PHQ-9. Results: The theoretical 9-factor-model could be satisfactorily replicated after reducing the number of items to three per factor. The correlation between the dysfunctional strategies and anxiety sensitivity and depressive symptoms exceeded those between the functional ones and psychopathology. The strongest associations were found with Catastrophizing, Self-Blame, Rumination, Positive Reappraisal and Positive Refocusing, the weakest appeared with Refocusing on Planning. Conclusion: The theoretical 9-factor-strucure could be confirmed for the German CERQ. It also proofed to have good reliability. Its correlation to anxiety sensitivity and depression are similar to those of the original. Although further investigation is needed, especially in terms of construct validity, the CERQ appears as an appropriate instrument for further research on emotion regulation.