Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes.

Proposes that the ways people respond to their own symptoms of depression influence the duration of these symptoms. People who engage in ruminative responses to depression, focusing on their symptoms and the possible causes and consequences of their symptoms, will show longer depression than people who take action to distract themselves from their symptoms. Ruminative responses prolong depression because they allow the depressed mood to negatively bias thinking and interfere with instrumental behavior and problem-solving. Laboratory and field studies directly testing this theory have supported its predictions. The author discusses how response styles can explain the greater likelihood of depression in women than men, then integrates this response styles theory with studies of coping with discrete events. The response style theory is compared to other theories of the duration of depression. Finally, suggestions are made that may help a depressed person to stop engaging in ruminative responses and on how response style for depression may develop. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress exposure and stress generation in child and adolescent depression: A latent trait-state-error approach to longitudinal analyses.

In 2 longitudinal studies of negative life events and depressive symptoms in adolescents (N = 708) and in children (N = 508), latent trait-state-error structural equation models tested both the stress generation hypothesis and the stress exposure hypothesis. Results strongly suggested that self-reports of depressive symptoms reflect the influence of a perfectly stable trait factor as well as a less stable state factor. Support emerged for both the stress generation model and the stress exposure model. When the state depression factor was modeled as predicting stress, support for the stress generation model appeared to increase with age. When the trait depression factor was modeled as the predictor of stress, support for the stress generation model did not vary with the child's age. In both models, support for the stress exposure remained relatively constant across age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reciprocal relations between rumination and bulimic, substance abuse, and depressive symptoms in female adolescents.

The authors examined the reciprocal relations between rumination and symptoms of depression, bulimia, and substance abuse with longitudinal data from 496 female adolescents. Rumination predicted future increases in bulimic and substance abuse symptoms, as well as onset of major depression, binge eating, and substance abuse. Depressive and bulimic, but not substance abuse, symptoms predicted increases in rumination. Rumination did not predict increases in externalizing symptoms, providing evidence for the specificity of effects of rumination, although externalizing symptoms predicted future increases in rumination. Results suggest rumination may contribute to the etiology of depressive, bulimic, and substance abuse pathology and that the former two disturbances may foster increased rumination. Results imply that it might be beneficial for prevention programs to target this cognitive vulnerability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonsuicidal self-injury in young adolescent girls: Moderators of the distress-function relationship.

This study examined nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) in a community sample of young adolescent girls. Potential moderators of the relationships between different types of distress (internal and interpersonal) and particular functions of NSSI (emotion-regulation and interpersonal) were explored. Participants included 94 girls (49% Hispanic; 25% African American) ages 10-14 years who completed questionnaires regarding self-injurious behavior and other constructs of interest. Fifty-six percent of girls (n = 53) reported engaging in NSSI during their lifetime, including 36% (n = 34) in the past year. Internal distress (depressive symptoms) was associated with engaging in NSSI for emotion-regulation functions, and rumination moderated the relationship between depressive symptoms and engaging in NSSI for automatic positive reinforcement. Interpersonal distress (peer victimization) was associated with engaging in NSSI for social reinforcement, and quality of peer communication moderated this relationship. The clinical implications of these findings include designing preventions that address the particular contexts of self-injurious behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are two interventions worse than none? Joint primary and secondary prevention of eating disorders in college females.

Prevention programs for eating disorders attempt to simultaneously prevent new cases from arising (primary prevention) and encourage students who already have symptoms to seek early treatment (secondary prevention), even though ideal strategies for these 2 types of prevention may be incompatible with each other. In the present study, an eating disorder prevention program was evaluated in a sample of female college freshmen. In the intervention, classmates who had recovered from eating disorders described their experiences and provided information about eating disorders. At follow-up, intervention participants had slightly more symptoms of eating disorders than did controls. The program may have been ineffective in preventing eating disorders because by reducing the stigma of these disorders (to encourage students with problems to seek help), the program may have inadvertently normalized them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rumination and psychological distress among bereaved partners.

Recently bereaved men who evidenced more negative ruminative thoughts in free-response interviews showed greater psychological distress on several outcome measures both 1 month and 12 months after their loss and less increase in positive morale over this 12-month period. Men who engaged in more analysis of themselves and the meaning of their loss reported greater positive morale 1 month after their loss but showed more persistent depression and absence of positive states of mind over the 12 months following their loss. Finally, men who reported more social friction also evidenced more enduring depressive symptoms over the year than did men who reported less social friction. These results are generally consistent with other studies that have shown that self-reflective, ruminative coping with negative emotions and social friction are associated with longer and more severe periods of depressed mood following stressful events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response styles and the duration of episodes of depressed mood.

Examined the relationship between ruminative and distracting styles of responding to depressed mood and the duration of mood. 79 Ss kept accounts of their moods and responses to their moods for 30 consecutive days. The majority of Ss (83%) showed consistent styles of responding to depressed mood. Regression analyses suggested that the more ruminative responses Ss engaged in, the longer their periods of depressed mood, even after taking into account the initial severity of the mood. In addition, women were more likely than men to have a ruminative response style and on some measures to have more severe and long-lasting periods of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive symptoms over time in women partners of men with and without alcohol problems.

In a sample of 202 adult women and their families, the authors examined the effects of their male partners' alcohol problems and antisociality, the women's alcohol problems and antisociality, family conflict, and offspring behavioral problems on the women's depressive symptoms over a 3-year period. The women's antisociality and alcohol problems were more strongly related to family conflict, offspring behavioral problems, and the women's depressive symptoms than were the men's antisociality and alcohol problems. The women's antisociality and family conflict most strongly predicted increases in the women's depressive symptoms over time. In addition, family conflict mediated the effects of maternal antisociality on the women's depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recovery from major depressive disorder among female adolescents: A prospective test of the scar hypothesis.

This study examined the psychosocial consequences of experiencing major depressive disorder (MDD). In a 7-year longitudinal study of 496 female adolescents, the authors identified 49 girls who experienced their first episode of MDD and then recovered. They were compared with a randomly selected group of 98 never depressed participants on 13 psychological, social, psychiatric, and life events variables. None of the variables fit the scar pattern (i.e., a group difference that emerges during the first MDD episode and remains elevated post-recovery). All 13 variables were elevated before, during, and after the MDD episode, although some increased during the MDD episode. Results provide little support for the scar hypothesis among adolescent girls but instead suggest that many risk variables are elevated before and after the MDD episode. Interventions that modify these factors may help to reduce depression incidence and recurrence among female adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire—Revised: Psychometric examination.

This study examines the psychometric properties of the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire—Revised (CASQ–R; N. J. Kaslow & S. Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991), a 24-item shortened measure derived from the 48-item CASQ designed to assess children's causal explanations for positive and negative events. The data for this study come from 1,086 children, 9 to 12 years old, with equal representation of boys and girls and African American and Caucasian children. Approximately one half (n?=?475) of the youths also completed the CASQ–R 6 months later. Results revealed that although the CASQ-R was somewhat less reliable than the original CASQ, with moderate internal consistency reliability and fair test-retest reliability, it demonstrated equivalent criterion-related validity with self-reported depressive symptoms. Psychometric properties of the CASQ-R showed some variation by race, such that the overall composite demonstrated better internal consistency and criterion-related validity among Caucasian youths than among African American youths. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)