A Prospective Test of the Clinical Metacognitive Model of Rumination and Depression

Rumination is a salient feature of dysphoria and depression. According to inetacognitive theory (Wells & Matthews, 1994; Wells, 2009) metacognitive beliefs are associated with rumination and depression and contribute to the effect of rumination in the development of psychological disorder. Papageorgiou and Wells (2003, 2004) tested a inetacognitive model of the factors responsible for the initiation and maintenance of rumination and its relationship with depression and several studies supported for the role of metacognitions. The present study used a prospective design to examine possible causal factors in the model by testing relationships between negative metacognitive beliefs, rumination, and depression in a nonclinical sample. The results showed that negative metacognitive beliefs about rumination prospectively predicted depression even after statistically controlling for initial levels of depression and rumination. However, nimination did not prospectively predict depression when controlling for negative metacognitive beliefs about niniination. The results are consistent with the naetacognitive model of depression and arc consistent with the focus in metacognitive therapy.