Rumination as a Mediator between Childhood Trauma and Adulthood Depression/Anxiety in Non-clinical Participants

Abstract

Objective: Although there is strong evidence that childhood trauma is associated with the development of depression and anxiety, relatively few studies have explored potential mediating factors for this relationship. The present study aimed to evaluate the mediating role of rumination in the link between childhood trauma and mood status such as depression, anxiety and affective lability.Materials and Methods: Two hundred and seven non-clinical participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Ruminative Response Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, the State Anxiety Inventory, and the Affective Lability Scale. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the results.Results: Our results supported that rumination is a meaningful mediator between childhood trauma and depression/anxiety in non-clinical participants. The mediation model indicated that childhood trauma and its subtypes are linked to depression and anxiety through three subtypes of rumination, thereby supporting a significant indirect relationship (Standardized coefficient [SC] = 0.56, p < 0.001 for the path from trauma to rumination; SC = 0.67, p < 0.001, from rumination to mood). The direct relationship between childhood trauma and mood symptoms was also significant in a model including rumination (SC = 0.68, p < 0.001). The mediation effect of rumination in the relationship between childhood trauma and mood was more predominant in female participants.Conclusions: The present study found that rumination mediates the influence of childhood trauma on the development of mood symptoms in non-clinical participants. Childhood trauma appears to be a critical determinant for developing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Development and validation of the Physical Activity-Specific Rumination Scale for Children (PARSC) through understanding the intrinsic facilitators and barriers of physical activity in UK children – a mixed-method study.

“…People with this brooding response style tend to exacerbate the negative affects while avoiding the stressors as they can cause heightened psychological and/or physiological stress reactivity 19 − 21 . Rumination has been consistently found to be associated with depression and anxiety 22,23 , yet its applicability to PA behaviours has been largely overlooked 24 . Only few studies have examined the relationship between rumination and PA behaviours.…”

The Mediating Role of Rumination on Parenting Style, Childhood Trauma, and Adulthood Depression

“…Response styles theory of depression states that rumination, as a cognitive style, is formed during childhood. Studies have considered factors like parenting styles (Chow & Lo, 2017;Williams, Harfmann, Ingram, Hagan, & Kramer, 2015), and childhood traumas (Kim, Jin, Jung, Hahn, & Lee, 2017), as effective environmental phenomena, leading to the development of rumination. Manfredi et al, (2011) argued overprotection is the only important factor predicting the development of rumination and worry.…”

“…Maltreated children often experience a lack of control over their lives. Therefore, it can be another risk factor for developing a ruminative response style (Kim et al, 2017). Numerous studies have supported the relationship between childhood maltreatment and adulthood depression, with most of them focusing on sexual, physical, and emotional maltreatment and abuse (O'Neill et al, 2018).…”

“…Parenting styles and childhood traumas are related to rumination and depression (Chow & Lo, 2017;Kim et al, 2017); however, they have not been simultaneously studied to unfold the related details. Furthermore, it is not specified which trauma types (physical, sexual, emotional) (Spasojević & Alloy, 2002) have a greater effect on the formation of rumination.…”

“…The discriminative feature of this study was investigating the concurrence of perceived parenting styles and childhood traumas, as well as the influences of various traumas on such relationship. We have hypothesized that care and overprotection are associated with rumination (Manfredi et al, 2011;Williams et al, 2015); childhood trauma and its scales are related to rumination (Kim et al, 2017); and rumination plays a mediating role between parenting styles and depression symptoms (Gate et al, 2013).…”