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Co-Rumination and Co–Problem Solving in the Daily Lives of Adolescents With Major Depressive Disorder

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Objective

This study examines differences in the prevalence and nature of co-rumination during real-world social interactions with peers and parents among adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) compared to healthy controls.

Method

A total of 60 youth (29 with current MDD and 31 controls without psychopathology) completed a self-report measure of co-rumination and a 3-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol that measured the nature of face-to-face social interactions with peers and parents after a negative event in the adolescents' daily lives. Specifically, EMA was used to assess rates of problem talk, including both co-rumination and co–problem solving. Group differences in self-report and EMA measures were examined.

Results

Adolescents with MDD reported co-ruminating more often than adolescents with no Axis 1 disorders during daily interactions with both parents (Cohen's d = 0.78) and peers (d = 1.14), and also reported more co-rumination via questionnaire (d = 0.58). Adolescents with MDD engaged in co–problem solving with peers less often than did healthy controls (d = 0.78), but no group differences were found for rates of co–problem solving with parents.

Conclusions

Results are consistent with previous research linking co-rumination and depression in adolescence and extend these self-report–based findings to assessment in an ecologically valid context. Importantly, the results support that MDD youth tend to co-ruminate more and to problem-solve less with peers in their daily lives compared to healthy youth, and that co-rumination also extends to parental relationships. Interventions focused on decreasing co-rumination with peers and parents and improving problem-solving skills with peers may be helpful for preventing and treating adolescent depression.

Section snippets

Study Participants

Participants were 60 youth 11 through 17 years of age (mean = 14.47 years; SD = 1.79 years) who participated in a study of pediatric MDD. Of these, 29 youth were in a major depressive episode at the onset of the study. Control participants (n = 31) had no lifetime history of psychopathology and were matched to participants with MDD by age and gender. Because some youth with depressive symptoms originally recruited for the study did not meet final criteria for inclusion, the final sample

Coping-Related Sociability

All participants reported having a social companion when coping with a negative event on at least 1 EMA call. Results from 2-tailed independent-samples t tests indicated that youth with MDD and controls were similarly likely to report having a peer (t57 = 0.385, p = .701) or parent (t57 = 0.876, p = .385) as a social companion while coping with a negative event.

Self-Report Questionnaire Measure of Co-Rumination

On the CRQ, adolescents with MDD (mean = 2.66, SD = 0.89) reported significantly higher levels of co-rumination than healthy controls

Discussion

The present study demonstrates that adolescents currently meeting DSM-IV criteria for MDD are more likely to co-ruminate with peers during real-time problem talk compared to healthy adolescents. This is the first study of which we are aware to document increased co-rumination in a sample of adolescents currently experiencing a depressive disorder, and is consistent with other reports showing that self-reported co-rumination predicts future20 and past21 depressive episodes in community samples.

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    Clinical guidance is available at the end of this article.

    This research was supported by National Institute of Drug Abuse grant R21DA024144 ( J.S.S., R.E.D.) and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh (National Institutes of Health [NIH]/National Center for Research Resources [NCRR]/ Clinical and Translational Science Awards [CTSA] Grant UL1 RR024153).

    Disclosure: Drs. Silk, Stone, Dahl, and Ms. Waller report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.

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