Rumination and Lifetime History of Suicide Attempts

The primary goal of the current study was to examine the link between rumination (brooding and reflective rumination) and the history of suicide attempts in adult psychiatric inpatients. As predicted, psychiatric inpatients reporting histories of suicide attempts exhibited higher current levels of brooding, but not reflective, rumination than did those with no prior suicide attempts. These results were maintained even after statistically controlling for patients' current depressive symptom levels. These results support the hypothesis that rumination, particularly brooding rumination, may be a risk factor for suicide attempts.