Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression, Rumination, Hopelessness, and Suicidal Ideation: Multiple Pathways to Self-Injurious Thinking

In this study, the relationships among suicide ideation & behaviours with negative cognitive styles & attitudes were examined in the context of the Attention Mediated Hopelessness theory of depression. 127 undergraduates in the Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression project were followed for 2.5 years. Initially nondepressed freshmen, at either high or low cognitive risk for depression, were followed in order to predict onsets & recurrences of depressive disorders. The presence & duration of suicide ideation were predicted prospectively by rumination & hopelessness, & hopelessness partially mediated the relationship between rumination & ideation & fully mediated the association between rumination & duration of suicidality. Rumination also medicated the relationship between cognitive vulnerability & suicide ideation. (33 refs.)