Depression and anxiety are prevalent in youth populations and typically emerge during adolescence. Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a putative transdiagnostic mechanism with consistent associations with depression and anxiety. Targeting transdiagnostic processes like RNT for youth depression and anxiety may offer more targeted, personalised and effective treatment.

A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the effect of psychological treatments on RNT, depression and anxiety symptoms in young people with depression or anxiety, and a meta-regression to examine relationships between outcomes.

Twenty-eight randomised controlled trials examining 17 different psychological interventions were included. Effect sizes were small to moderate across all outcomes (Hedge's g depression = −0.47, CI −0.77 to −0.17; anxiety = −0.42, CI −0.65 to −0.20; RNT = −0.45, CI −0.67 to −0.23). RNT-focused and non-RNT focused approaches had comparable effects; however, those focusing on modifying the process of RNT had significantly larger effects on RNT than those focusing on modifying negative thought content. Meta-regression revealed a significant relationship between RNT and depression outcomes only across all intervention types and with both depression and anxiety for RNT focused interventions only.

Consistent with findings in adults, this review provides evidence that reducing RNT with psychological treatment is associated with improvements in depression and anxiety in youth. Targeting RNT specifically may not lead to better outcomes compared to general approaches; however, focusing on modifying the process of RNT may be more effective than targeting content. Further research is needed to determine causal pathways.

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT), a cognitive process that encompasses past (rumination) and future (worry) directed thoughts focusing on negative experiences and the self, is a transdiagnostic construct that is especially relevant for major depressive disorder (MDD). Severe RNT often occurs in individuals with severe levels of MDD, which makes it challenging to disambiguate the neural circuitry underlying RNT from depression severity.

We used a propensity score, i.e., a conditional probability of having high RNT given observed covariates to match high and low RNT individuals who are similar in the severity of depression, anxiety, and demographic characteristics. Of 148 MDD individuals, we matched high and low RNT groups (n = 50/group) and used a data-driven whole-brain voxel-to-voxel connectivity pattern analysis to investigate the resting-state functional connectivity differences between the groups.

There was an association between RNT and connectivity in the bilateral superior temporal sulcus (STS), an important region for speech processing including inner speech. High relative to low RNT individuals showed greater connectivity between right STS and bilateral anterior insular cortex (AI), and between bilateral STS and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Greater connectivity in those regions was specifically related to RNT but not to depression severity.

RNT intensity is directly related to connectivity between STS and AI/DLPFC. This might be a mechanism underlying the role of RNT in perceptive, cognitive, speech, and emotional processing. Future investigations will need to determine whether modifying these connectivities could be a treatment target to reduce RNT.

Fear associated to infectious diseases is directly related with their transmission rate, morbidity and mortality. High levels of fear associated with COVID-19 can affect people’s ability to act and think rationally. In a time of pandemics, it is essential to understand individual factors that might be associated to higher vulnerability to stress and fear.

To analyse: a)correlations between Fear of Covid-19 and clinical and sociodemographic characteristics; b)the mediator role of repetitive negative thinking on the relationship between personality traits and Fear of Covid-19.

234 adults (75.6% women; mean age=29.53±12.51) completed an on-line survey with the Portuguese version of the Fear of Covid-19 Scale (FCV-19S) and other questionnaires to evaluate clinical and sociodemographic characteristics (years of education, perceived physical and mental health and infection by Covid-19), Personality (NEO-FFI-20) and Repetitive negative thinking (PTQ-15). SPSS and Process Macro (Hays, 2020) were used.

FCV-19 mean scores were significantly higher in women and significantly correlated with years of education (r=-.14) (p<.05). History of previous/current Covid-19 infection did not significantly distinguish FCV-19 scores and they did not correlate with perceived health. FCV-19 correlated significantly with neuroticism and PTQ total and dimensional scores (r>.20, p<.01). Both Repetitive thinking and Cognitive interference were mediators of the relationship between neuroticism and fear of COVID, even after controlling for gender and education.

This study provides preliminary evidence on individual factors that might be associated to the emotional response to the Covid-19 pandemics, aiming to facilitate public health initiatives to ease people’s fears in a near future.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is common in youths. However, our understanding of SAD in children is inferior to that of SAD in adolescents or adults, and it is unclear if known adult SAD maintenance mechanisms may also operate in children with SAD.

The paper sets out to investigate the specificity of positive automatic thoughts, social threat negative automatic thoughts, repetitive negative thinking, positive and negative metacognitions in predicting SAD symptoms and diagnoses in clinically anxious children.

We enrolled 122 clinically anxious children aged 7–13 years; of these, 33 had an SAD diagnosis.

SAD symptoms correlated positively with social threat negative automatic thoughts, repetitive negative thinking, and negative metacognitions, and negatively with positive automatic thoughts. Linear regression indicated that, of these variables, only social threat negative automatic thoughts predicted social anxiety symptoms. Logistic regression indicated that social threat negative automatic thoughts, a higher number of diagnoses and negative metacognitive beliefs specifically predicted the presence of SAD diagnosis.

Our findings suggest that content-specific social threat negative automatic thoughts was the only variable that specifically distinguished both higher levels of social anxiety symptoms and diagnoses.