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Rumination mediates the relationships between depressed mood and both sleep quality and self-reported health in young adults

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Abstract

The psychological mechanisms by which depressed mood can lead to impaired sleep and poorer overall health remain unclear. The goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which a tendency to ruminate accounts for the associations between depressed mood and both sleep quality and self-reported health in 165 healthy young adults. Self-reported assessments of anxiety, depressed mood, rumination, sleep quality, and general health were collected at two different time points approximately 2 months apart. Structural equation modeling revealed that rumination measured at the earlier time point mediated the relationships between depressed mood and both sleep quality and health, all measured at the later time point, in a model that was a good fit to the data overall, χ2 (50, N = 165) = 103.08, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.08 (0.06–0.10), TLI = 0.91, CFI = 0.94. Results were similar whether or not anxiety was controlled. Results indicate that rumination may be a psychological mechanism by which negative mood leads to impaired sleep and poorer perceived health.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by a grant from The Pennsylvania State University Social Science Research Institute, Level 1 Funding and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DGE1255832. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Conflict of interest

The authors Danica C. Slavish and Jennifer E. Graham-Engeland declare no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

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  1. 219 Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Danica C. Slavish & Jennifer E. Graham-Engeland

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Slavish, D.C., Graham-Engeland, J.E. Rumination mediates the relationships between depressed mood and both sleep quality and self-reported health in young adults. J Behav Med 38, 204–213 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-014-9595-0

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