Interactive Effect of Negative Affectivity and Rumination in Terms of Mental Health Among Latinos in Primary Care.

Abstract

The present investigation examined the interactive effects of rumination and negative affectivity in relation to anxiety and depressive symptoms and psychopathology among 245 Latino adults (M age=39.7, SD=11.4; 86.9% female; 97.6% reported Spanish as their first language) attending a community-based primary healthcare clinic. As expected, there was a significant interaction between rumination and negative affectivity for depressive, suicidal, social anxiety, anxious arousal symptoms, number of mood and anxiety disorders, and disability among the primary care Latino sample. Inspection of the interaction forms indicated a high degree of conceptual similarity. Specifically, rumination was related to greater levels of suicidal symptoms, social anxiety, anxious arousal, number of mood and anxiety disorders, and disability among individuals with higher, but not lower, levels of negative affectivity. The form of the interaction for depressive symptoms was in line with this pattern, but more extreme; rumination was related to greater levels of depressive symptoms among individuals with both higher and lower levels of negative affectivity. Together, these data provide novel empirical evidence suggesting that there is clinically relevant interplay between rumination and negative affectivity in regard to a relatively wide array of anxiety and depressive variables among Latinos in a primary care medical setting.