Comparison of Brooding and Reflection Rumination between People with Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Background and Purpose: Rumination is one of the most significant symptoms of several mental illnesses. Rumination is categorized into brooding and reflection. Notwithstanding the prevalence of rumination, the discrimination between its subtypes among various clinical populations has been overlooked. Materials and Methods: In this comparative study, our sample size consisted of 95 patients who were interviewed at a specialized health clinic in Sari. For diagnosis, we applied structured clinical interviews, the Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale, and The second version of the BDI inventory. For testing our hypothesis, we used The ruminative response scale (RRS) which enabled us to divide ruminations into brooding and reflection. In the first step, we determined descriptive statistics of the research, including mean, standard deviation, and Std. Error Mean. Independent samples t-tests were conducted to determine whether people with MDD and OCD significantly differed in subtypes of rumination. Results: Out of 95 participants who entered the study, 50 people suffered from MDD and 45 participants were diagnosed with OCD. For people with MDD, The Mean±SD age of the participants was 31.62 ± 6.94 years whereas that of people with OCD was higher at 32.11 ± 6.37. Our independent samples t-test analysis determined a significant difference in brooding between the groups (p <0.05). Nonetheless, the two groups did not show any difference in reflection. Conclusions: Considering the higher mean for brooding scores in people with MDD, it is concluded that this population is much more likely to adopt this passive and maladaptive type of rumination as a regulatory strategy, which in turn prone depressed people to lower mood.