Correlates of repetitive negative thinking in postnatal first time mothers

ABSTRACT

Background

Despite the well-established role of repetitive negative thinking (RNT) in the prediction and maintenance of depression and anxiety, only minimal research to date has investigated RNT in the context of postnatal psychological adjustment.

Objective

We examined the relationships between RNT, associated maladaptive cognitive processes, infant responsiveness and psychopathology in a sample of first-time mothers (N = 235) with babies under 12 months.

Methods

Participants completed an online battery of measures that indexed RNT, dampening of positive affect, metacognitive beliefs about RNT, infant responsiveness, depression and anxiety symptoms.

Results

As predicted, RNT was correlated with depression. Controlling for depression, RNT was associated with anxiety, dampening positive affect and positive beliefs about RNT. RNT was inversely related to maternal responsiveness, but this relationship was accounted for by depression.

Conclusions

Consistent with findings in the broader literature, RNT was associated with depression, anxiety and other unhelpful cognitive processes in the postnatal period, as well as with poor infant responsiveness. Whilst cross-sectional and preliminary, these data suggest there may be potential clinical utility in targeting RNT in first-time mothers.

KEYWORDS:

• Postnatal
• depression
• anxiety
• repetitive thinking
• rumination

Acknowledgments

Dr. Colette Hirsch receives salary support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of Kings College London, NIHR or the Department of Health.

Declarations Consent to participate

Participants provided electronic consent prior to taking part in the study.

Consent for publication

All participants consented to their data being published in an anonymised format.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

The study received ethical approval from the UNSW Sydney Human Research Ethics Advisory Panel C (HREAP – Behavioural Sciences; application file number 2765).

Authors’ contributions

This study was conducted as part of a larger collaboration amongst all authors. MM and MB designed the study. MB programmed the survey content. JN, MM, MB and CH all contributed to writing the manuscript; all authors read and approved the final version.

Authors’ information

CH receives salary support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. JN receives support from the Australian Medical Research Future Fund/National Health and Medical Research Council (MRFF/NHMRC). The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of King’s College London, NIHR, or NHMRC.

Notes

1. We attempted to collect follow-up data from participants 6 months post-baseline, to investigate the extent to which RNT at baseline predicted depression and anxiety. Response rate was poor (i.e. 25%) and not representative of the initial sample (i.e. participants who completed follow-up measures had lower depression and anxiety symptoms at baseline). We therefore opted not to report these data.

2. We also asked participants whether they had experienced any two week periods of low mood and/or anhedonia, in an attempt to obtain information about possible depression history. However, given the absence of diagnostic interviews to confirm veracity, and for the sake of brevity, we opted not to report these data.

Additional information

Funding

This work received some support from UNSW Sydney PLuS Alliance Fellows funding awarded to Michelle Moulds. UNSW PLuS Alliance had no role in the study design, the collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, or the writing of the manuscript.