Rumination and worry in nonclinical adolescents

Worry and rumination both refer to unproductive, repetitive thought processes. Few studies have addressed the relationship between these two constructs, with most researchers exclusively relating rumination to depression and worry to anxiety. The present study examined relationships between self-reported rumination as assessed by the Children's Response Style Scale (CRSS), worry as measured by the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C), and anxiety and depression symptoms as indexed by respectively the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) and the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) in a sample of 337 nonclinical adolescents aged 12-17 years. Results showed that rumination and worry were substantially correlated. Further, a factor analysis showed that both constructs were nevertheless distinct as rumination and worry items loaded on separate factors. Interestingly, both rumination and worry correlated more substantially with anxiety symptoms than with depression symptoms. Finally, worry emerged as a unique predictor of anxiety symptoms, even when controlling for rumination. In contrast, when controlling for worry, rumination no longer accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in depression symptoms.