By Joene Hendry

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Girls who repeatedly focus on the same emotionally charged or negative topics when chatting with friends, may be more likely to develop symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially if the girls are also romantically involved.

In a study that assessed the personal relationships of 83 girls in the seventh and eighth grades, the repeated discussion of problems in a very negative, emotion-focused manner, referred to as "co-rumination," was associated with "increases in depression among girls with greater levels of romantic experience," said Lisa Starr, a doctoral candidate at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

On the other hand, co-rumination "was associated with slight decreases in depressive symptoms among girls with lower levels of romantic involvement," Starr told Reuters Health.

Over a 1-year period, Starr and co-investigator Joanne Davila, also at SUNY at Stony Brook, collected information on the girls' personal relationships and psychological symptoms from the girls and their parents.

Their findings, reported in the Journal of Adolescence, generally replicate those of previous studies that linked co-rumination with positive friendship qualities, as well as with more negative psychological aspects, such as symptoms of depression.

However, in this population of girls, Starr and Davila found co-rumination further associated with higher levels of romantic involvement. For example co-rumination was related to having a higher number of male friends, but not to having a greater number of close or female friends.

Co-ruminating about the challenges of teen romance, such as rejection, heartbreak, conflict, or unrequited love might amplify or prolong negative emotions, Starr explained. By contrast, repeated discussion of relatively benign topics may not have the same negative effects.

The investigators call for further research to examine whether emotions related to teen romance alter the relationship between co-rumination and symptoms of depression.

In the meantime, it is important for parents to distinguish between negative, emotion-focused, and repetitive co-rumination and problem-solving, as the latter, Starr said, is a more adaptive form of discussion that can often lead to solutions.

SOURCE: Journal of Adolescence, February 2009.

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