Rumination as a Moderating Factor for Different Dimensions of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescents with Subthreshold Depression: a Multi-Wave Longitudinal Study

This article reports on a longitudinal study in which we examined, across multiple waves of participants, the rumination vulnerability-stress model for the differential prediction of the dimensions of anxiety and depression. Baseline and 6-month follow-up data were obtained from 371 adolescents with subthreshold depression. According to analyses based on hierarchical linear modeling, increased rumination showed association with increased total score for depressive symptoms. The greater increases were only associated with the dimension of depressed mood, not with other symptoms of depression. Furthermore, increased rumination was associated with increases in the total score and all symptomatic dimensions of anxiety following stressful events. These findings support rumination's potential for a transdiagnostic role as symptoms of depression and anxiety develop. While rumination may have general application concerning how symptoms of anxiety develop on each dimension, its application for diagnoses of depression is limited to assessing depressed mood, not other dimensions.