Effect of sleep and rumination in predicting depression

Abstract

The prevalence rate of depression is surging around the globe, despite the effective medication and psychotherapy. Symptoms of sleep difficulties and rumination are commonly identified among patients with depression. Past studies have extensively discussed the predictive power of sleep difficulties and rumination on depression respectively yet lack systematic comparison of the predictors. The current study investigated the effect of sleep difficulties and rumination in predicting depression in the local Chinese community. Using a cross-sectional design, 30 Hong Kong Chinese participants with depression and 42 Hong Kong Chinese non-depressed participants underwent mental health screening through the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID) conducted by well-trained interviewers, and valid responses on Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), Ruminative Response Scale (RRS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were collected. Results from linear regression analysis were consistent with the western findings that sleep difficulties and rumination significantly predicted the depressive severity in local context. Logistic regression analysis identified that sleep difficulties and rumination significantly predicted the likelihood of depression within the local participants. Nevertheless, the result suggested that the interaction between sleep difficulties and rumination was not statistically significant in predicting depression among the local participants. The current findings support that sleep difficulties and rumination are the sound predictors of depression in the Hong Kong Chinese population.