Consistent across time and cultures, men and male adolescents older than 14 years of ageappear underrepresented in mood disorders, and are far less likely than women to seek psychologicalhelp. The much higher rate of suicide amongst males suggests that depression inmen might be underreported. One of the core human motives is to seek acceptance by othersand avoid rejection. Rejection Sensitivity (RS) has been conceptualized as the cognitive-affective processing disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intenselyrespond to cues of rejection in the behavior of others. RS has been previously linked withthe onset and course of depression, butÐas yetÐhas not been investigated longitudinallyin a clinical population. We investigated the predictive role of RS to symptom deterioration 6months after end-of- treatment in 72 male inpatients with depressive spectrum disorder.The BDI was administered at intake, end-of-treatment and 6 month follow-up. RS scoreswere obtained at intake. Rejection Sensitivity had additional predictive power on BDI scoresat 6 months follow-up controlling for BDI scores at end-of-treatment (ΔR2 = .095). Theresults are discussed in terms of the importance of targeting RS during treatment, and highlightthe fact that therapeutic follow-up care is paramount. Future research should investigatepossible mediators of the RS±relapse-to-depression association, such as self-blame,rumination, neuroticism, pessimism, emotion dysregulation, and low self-esteem.
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