Development and validation of the trait and state versions of the Post-Event Processing Inventory

Post-event processing (PEP) refers to negative and prolonged rumination following anxiety-provoking social situations. Although there are scales to assess PEP, they are situation-specific, some targeting only public-speaking situations. Furthermore, there are no trait measures to assess the tendency to engage in PEP.

The purpose of this research was to create a new measure of PEP, the Post-Event Processing Inventory (PEPI), which can be employed following all types of social situations and includes both trait and state forms.

Over two studies (study 1, N = 220; study 2, N = 199), we explored and confirmed the factor structure of the scale with student samples.

For each form of the scale, we found and confirmed that a higher-order, general PEP factor could be inferred from three sub-domains (intensity, frequency, and self-judgment). We also found preliminary evidence for the convergent, concurrent, discriminant/divergent, incremental, and predictive validity for each version of the scale. Both forms of the scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency and the trait form had excellent two-week test-retest reliability.

Given the utility and versatility of the scale, the PEPI may provide a useful alternative to existing measures of PEP and rumination.