A Longitudinal Observational Study of Caregiver-Adolescent Co-Rumination After a Natural Disaster

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Background: Natural disasters cause widespread loss, disruption, and psychological difficulties in the months and years following exposure. Emotional guidance and engagement from parents in the aftermath of a disaster can help youth emotionally process and adapt following the event. However, when conversations include co-rumination, defined as extensively rehashing and dwelling on problems with others, there may be both risks and benefits for youth psychological adjustment. The current study focuses on two aspects of the measurement of co-rumination during a task in which adolescents and their mothers were asked to co-reminisce about a shared tornado experience. This is one of the first studies to assess whether four proposed components of co-rumination—rehashing problems, dwelling on negative affect, mutual encouragement of problem talk, and speculating about problems—could be reliably coded during parent-adolescent conversations about natural disaster trauma. We then examined whether early tornado-related posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) related systematically to co-rumination assessed several years later and whether these patterns differed by adolescent age.

Methods: Two hundred adolescents (ages 12 to 17 years) and their female caregivers who experienced a category EF-4 tornado in April 2011 conversed together about their tornado experiences approximately 5 years post-tornado. All dyads responded to five standardized prompts. Participants were drawn from a prospective, longitudinal study of at-risk aggressive youth, were 80% African American, and predominantly lower income. All conversations were transcribed verbatim and coded for four components of co-rumination using an observational coding scheme adapted from Rose and colleagues (2014). Each parent-adolescent dyad was rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale for each of the following co-rumination components: (a) dwelled on negative affect; (b) encouraged each other to keep talking about problems; (c) rehashed problems (e.g., repeatedly discussed the same problem); and (d) speculated about problems (e.g., estimated possible outcomes, causes, or consequences). Tornado-related PTSS was collected via self-report 6 months following the tornado.

Results: Inter-rater reliability for the four co-rumination variables were in the excellent range (ICCs = .87 to .91). The means for all co-rumination variables ranged from 1.69 to 2.46 and were similar to means found in previous co-rumination research with peers. All variables were considered to have normal distributions based on skewness and kurtosis. The four components were moderately positively correlated with one another (r’s = .36 to .64). Regression analyses demonstrated that PTSS was only associated with “dwelling on negative affect” (B=.01, SE=.005, p=.01). Youth age moderated this link, such that PTSS was associated with “dwelling on negative affect” only for older adolescents (Mage=15.09; B=.01, SE=.005, p=.04).

Discussion: Results provide evidence that co-rumination is present and can be reliably measured in parent-adolescent conversations about natural disasters. In addition, it appears that post-disaster PTSS is related to only some aspects of later co-rumination, particularly when the co-rumination conversations are characterized by extensive focus on negative emotion and for older adolescents. Findings may inform the development of evidence-based, developmentally sensitive disaster interventions to help parents and youth best communicate following disasters in a way that promotes optimal growth and recovery.

Authors

• Madelaine R Abel, Massachusetts General Hospital
  Presenting Author

• Eric M Vernberg, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Edward Lochman, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristina Lynne McDonald, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
  Non-Presenting Author