Rumination, anxiety and symptoms of depression in adolescents

Rumination has been described in terms of the tendency to focus attention on distressed emotions. The construct of rumination has usually been measured with the RRS Ruminative Responses Scale (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991). In the present research, the psychometric properties of the last version of the Spanish-translated RRS were assessed using a sample of 871 Chilean adolescents (Treynor, Gonzalez, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2003). The present study examined the relationship between rumination and its two sub factors, reflection and chewing, with depressive and anxious symptoms. The alpha index was .75 and test-retest correlation was .80. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a satisfactory fit of the two-factor model. There was a moderate positive correlation between rumination and sub factors with emotional symptoms. Rumination appears to be a mediating factor for the higher degree of emotional symptoms in female adolescents.