Co-rumination and depression: A systematic review and future directions.

Introduction: Literature on risk for depression largely focuses on intrapersonal risk factors, especially rumination, yet identifying interpersonal behaviors that increase negative affect may have important implications for understanding depression and risk for depression. Co-rumination is an explicitly interpersonal process that entails extensive and repetitive discussion of problems and associated negative affect within a dyad. Co-rumination has been well documented in depression, and may have important implications for understanding the disorder, but to date there has been no systematic review of the co-rumination literature, making it difficult to ascertain how co-rumination might be related to depression, and possibly to depression vulnerability. Method: Accordingly, we present a systematic review and appraisal of the literature on co-rumination, with suggestions for future research. Results: Co-rumination appears associated with depression risk across development through stress generation, parent-child interactions, and depression contagion. Existing research is consistent with the field's current understanding of several depression vulnerability factors, but additional research is needed to replicate and extend these findings. Discussion: Our review suggests that among the multitude of variables associated with risk for depression, co-rumination may deserve a prominent place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]