Depressive symptoms, ruminative thinking, marijuana use motives, and marijuana outcomes: A multiple mediation model among college students in five countries

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have evidenced that rumination and drinking motives may mediate the association between depressive symptoms and alcohol outcomes. The present study cross-culturally examined whether a similar mediation model may extend to marijuana. Specifically, we tested distinct rumination facets (problem-focused thoughts, counterfactual thinking, repetitive thoughts, and anticipatory thoughts) and marijuana use motives (social, coping, expansion, conformity, enhancement) as double-mediators of the paths from depressive symptoms to marijuana outcomes (use and consequences).

Method: A comprehensive mediation path model was tested in a cross-sectional sample of college student marijuana users (n = 1175) from five countries (U.S., Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, Netherlands). Multi-group models were tested to determine if the proposed mediational model was invariant across sex and different cultures/countries.

Results: Depressive symptoms and marijuana outcomes were indirectly associated through ruminative thinking and marijuana motives. Specifically, higher depressive symptoms were associated with higher problem-focused thoughts; which in turn were associated with: a) higher endorsement of coping motives which in turn was associated with higher marijuana use and related consequences and b) lower endorsement of enhancement motives which in turn was associated with lower marijuana use and related consequences. The multi-group analyses showed that the model was invariant across sex and the five countries.

Conclusions: The present research supports the existence of a universal (i.e., cross-national invariant) negative affect regulation pathway to marijuana use/misuse similar to those previously found with alcohol. Additional research is needed to confirm the role of enhancement motives in the associations of depression, rumination and marijuana outcomes.

Keywords: Cross-cultural; Depression; Marijuana; Marijuana use motives; Rumination.

Figure 1.

Depicts the standardized effects of the comprehensive mediation path model (n = 1,175). Significant associations are in bold typeface for emphasis and were determined by a 99% bias-corrected standardized bootstrapped confidence interval (based on 10,000 bootstrapped samples) that does not contain zero. The disturbances among rumination subcomponents (problem-focused thoughts, counterfactual thinking, repetitive thoughts, and anticipatory thoughts), marijuana use motives (social, enhancement, coping, conformity, and expansion), and marijuana outcomes were allowed to correlate. Non-significant path coefficients between rumination facets and marijuana motives/outcomes as well as depressive symptoms and marijuana use motives are not shown in the figure for reasons of parsimony but are available upon request.