Rumination, gender and depressive symptoms in adolescents: Adaptation of the Ruminative Scale of the CRSS Questionnaire

This study is based on the Response Style Theory (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1987, 1991). The aims were to adapt the ruminative responses scale of the Children s Response Styles Scale (CRSS; Ziegert & Kistner, 2002) to Spanish adolescents and to test whether gender differences in the components of rumination (brooding and reflection) account for the higher scores in depression among girls. A total of 1188 adolescents (544 girls and 644 boys), aged between 12 and 18 years, completed the ruminative response scale and a measure of depressive symptoms (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). The factor analysis confirmed the two factor model and presented good internal consistency. Finally, the results showed that gender differences in reflection partially explained the higher depressive scores of adolescent girls.