Rumination in dementia and its relationship with depression, anxiety, and attentional biases

Greenaway, A.-M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0394-8791, Hwang, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3243-3869, Nasuto, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9414-9049 and Ho, A. K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2581-126X (2024) Rumination in dementia and its relationship with depression, anxiety, and attentional biases. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. ISSN 1744-4128 doi: 10.1080/13825585.2024.2327679

Abstract/Summary

Rumination (self-referential and repetitive thinking), attentional biases (AB), and impaired cognitive control are theorized as being integral factors in depression and anxiety. Yet, research examining the relationship between rumination, mood, and AB for populations with reduced cognitive control, e.g., people living with dementia (PwD), is lacking. To explore whether literature-based relationships are demonstrated in dementia, PwD (n = 64) and healthy controls (HC) (n = 75) completed an online self-report survey measuring rumination and mood (twice), and a telephone cognitive status interview (once). Rumination was measured as an emotion-regulation style, thinking style, and response to depression. We examined the test-retest reliability of PwD’s (n = 50) ruminative-scale responses, ruminative-scale internal consistency, and correlations between rumination, age, cognitive ability, and mood scores. Also, nine participants (PwD = 6, HC = 3) completed an AB measure via eye-tracking. Participants fixated on a cross, naturally viewed pairs of facial images conveying sad, angry, happy, and neutral emotions, and then fixated on a dot. Exploratory analyses of emotional-face dwell-times versus rumination and mood scores were conducted. Except for the HC group’s reflective response to depression measure, rumination measures were reliable, and correlation strengths between rumination and mood scores (.29 to .79) were in line with literature for both groups. For the AB measure subgroup, ruminative thinking style scores and angry-face metrics were negatively correlated. The results of this study show that literature-based relationships between rumination, depression, and anxiety are demonstrated in dementia, but the relationship between rumination and AB requires further investigation.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/115794
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Department of Bio-Engineering
Uncontrolled Keywords	Psychiatry and Mental health, Geriatrics and Gerontology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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