The impact of non-infection pandemic stress on depression and anxiety severity: Investigating mediation by intrusive and deliberate rumination

Childhood emotional abuse and depression symptoms among Chinese adolescents: The sequential masking effect of ruminative thinking and deliberate rumination

BACKGROUND

This study delves into the relationship between childhood trauma and adolescent depression symptoms, specifically examining the distinct roles of ruminative thinking and deliberate rumination in mediating this connection. The focus is on exploring whether these cognitive processes, namely ruminative thinking and deliberate rumination, operate differently and sequentially in mediating the impact of childhood emotional abuse (CEA) on the development of depression symptoms among Chinese adolescents.

METHODS

The study involved gathering data from 489 adolescents, with a relatively balanced gender distribution (44.79 % males and 55.21 % females). The average age of the participants was 16.92 years, with a standard deviation of 0.67. Data collection took place in two Chinese high schools, and participants were tasked with completing assessments related to CEA, ruminative thinking, deliberate rumination, and depression symptoms. The interplay among these variables was then examined using a serial mediation model.

RESULTS

The findings of the study indicate that CEA not only exhibited a direct association with adolescent depression symptoms but also exerted indirect effects through distinct mediating mechanisms involving ruminative thinking and deliberate rumination. Specifically, ruminative thinking was identified as a mediator, whereas deliberate rumination emerged as a buffer in the relationship between CEA and depression. Additionally, ruminative thinking and deliberate rumination partially masked the effect of CEA on adolescent depression symptoms in a sequential pattern.

CONCLUSIONS

Regarding the link from CEA to adolescent depression symptoms, ruminative thinking is an adverse mediator while deliberate rumination appears to play a benign role. Consequently, the promotion of a shift from ruminative thinking to deliberate rumination is proposed as a promising strategy for alleviating the detrimental effects of CEA on adolescent depression.

A latent profile analysis of moral emotions following moral transgressions

OBJECTIVE

Moral transgressions (MTs), events that violate one's moral code, are associated with the moral emotions of guilt and shame. However, there may be different patterns by which people experience guilt and shame that affect distress following MTs.

METHOD

Undergraduates (N = 1371) exposed to an MT completed self-report assessments. This study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine profiles based on guilt cognitions, internalized shame, and distress in relation to a reported MT. Cognitive flexibility, years since the MT, and deliberate and intrusive rumination were examined as variables to determine how these factors predicted profile membership.

RESULTS

Results from the LPA revealed a three-profile solution: a low moral distress profile (n = 1002), a moderate moral distress profile (n = 262), and a shame prominent profile (n = 107). Results indicated that higher levels of deliberate and intrusive rumination and lower levels of cognitive flexibility significantly increased the likelihood of belonging to the moderate moral distress or shame prominent profiles compared to the low moral distress profile. Higher levels of intrusive rumination and lower levels of cognitive flexibility also significantly increased the likelihood of belonging to the shame prominent profile over the moderate distress profile.

CONCLUSION

Three different profiles emerged, with the shame prominent profile being driven primarily by internalized shame. Results suggest that intrusive rumination and cognitive inflexibility are risk factors to experiencing adverse responses to MTs.

Meaning-making while staying connected matters in psychological adaptation during pandemic: a longitudinal moderated mediation study

Adversity may bring about both negative and positive changes in psychological adaptation. Although there is mounting evidence regarding the psychological distress during the pandemic, the other side of posttraumatic change, posttraumatic growth (PTG) and its predictors are relatively underexamined. Moreover, there is a paucity of longitudinal investigations that examined intra- and interpersonal predictors responsible for both sides of psychological adaptation. Therefore, this study comprehensively examined the longitudinal relationship among cognitive processing, social support, and adaptation during the pandemic using a moderated mediation model. Specifically, it was tested whether two types of event-related rumination mediated the link between perceived stress and ambilateral adaptational outcomes, and whether social support moderated the mediating pathways of ruminations on adaptation. After informed consent, a representative sample of adults was followed up for over a year, and answered a package of online questionnaires. The results showed that intrusive rumination prospectively predicted greater psychological distress and less PTG in response to stress, whereas deliberate rumination led to less psychological distress and more PTG over time. As predicted, the indirect protective effect of deliberate rumination was stronger when perceived social support was higher. This longitudinal study highlighted the core factors responsible for continued suffering and personal growth during the pandemic. These results have both practical and clinical implications for mental healthcare in the post-COVID era, when the heterogeneity of psychological adaptation increases and preparation for the next pandemic is warranted.

Depressive symptoms among people under COVID-19 quarantine or self-isolation in Korea: a propensity score matching analysis

Introduction

This study aims to determine the effect of COVID-19-related hospital isolation or self-isolation on depression using the propensity score matching method.

Methods

Data on 217,734 participants were divided into groups based on whether or not they underwent quarantine for their COVID-19 diagnosis. COVID-19-related anxiety, depressive symptoms, subjective health status, and perceived stress were evaluated.

Results

Based on the calculated propensity score, we matched the quarantined group and non-quarantined group using 1:2 matching with nearest neighbor matching and a caliper width of 0.1. Within the quarantined group, 16.4% of participants experienced significant depressive symptoms, which was significantly higher than that of the non-quarantined group. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups in COVID-19-related anxiety, self-rated health status, and perceived stress. In our multiple logistic regression analysis with related variables corrected, the quarantined group was 1.298 times more likely to have depressive symptoms than the non-quarantined group (95% CI = 1.030-1.634).

Conclusion

Our study confirmed that COVID-19 quarantine is associated with depressive symptoms. These results indicate that healthcare policymakers and healthcare professionals must consider the negative mental and physical effects of quarantine when determining quarantine measures during an infectious disease disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The influence of deliberate rumination on the post-traumatic growth of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic and the moderating role of self-efficacy

Objective

To understand the relationship between deliberate rumination and post-traumatic growth and the mechanisms affecting this relationship, we constructed an adjustment model to test the impact of deliberate rumination on the post-traumatic growth of college students and the moderating role of self-efficacy during the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic.

Study design and setting

A total of 881 college students from a university of science and technology in Guangdong Province, China, completed a questionnaire that measured deliberate rumination, post-traumatic growth, and self-efficacy. SPSS (version 26) and the PROCESS plug-in (version 4.0) were used for correlation and moderation analyses.

Results

The correlation analysis showed that deliberate rumination was positively correlated with post-traumatic growth (r = 0.353, P < 0.01) and self-efficacy (r = 0.261, P < 0.01). Self-efficacy was also positively correlated with post-traumatic growth (r = 0.466, P < 0.01). In addition, we found that self-efficacy had a regulatory effect on the relationship between deliberate rumination and post-traumatic growth (R ² = 0.287, P < 0.001) and that this effect was significant.

Conclusion

The results show that deliberate rumination can be a positive predictor of post-traumatic growth and can play a certain role in fostering such growth. In addition, self-efficacy is a moderator that plays a buffer role between deliberate rumination and post-traumatic growth. These results contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that affect post-traumatic growth.

Data and alternative models describing the associations among non-infection pandemic stress, event-related rumination, depression, and anxiety

Here we present cross-sectional data collected from 1507 participants through the Qualtrics online survey platform. Participants were recruited from Reddit, Facebook, and the Queen's University undergraduate participant pool, and were instructed to complete a pandemic stress survey, the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) [1], the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) [2], a modified version of Event-Related Rumination Inventory (ERRI) [3], and a demographics questionnaire. For the 1069 participants who were not exposed to COVID-19 infection, we calculated the sum of each scale/subscale and performed a multiple mediation analysis using MPlus. The results indicated that three models (one primary model and two alternative models) had comparable statistical power to explain the variance as we tested different configurations of predictor, mediator, and outcome variables. Given the cross-sectional nature of the present study, we could not conclude which model was most valid. Therefore, we share our original data and tested models here for others to use. They are useful for researchers who wish to replicate our results, conduct new analyses with these data, or design future studies.