Post-event rumination and social anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Post-event rumination, the extent to which one engages in persistent, detailed, and negative thinking following social situations, serves as a risk process in the pathophysiology of social anxiety. Although a substantial body of research has assessed post-event rumination and social anxiety, this literature has produced inconsistent results. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine whether the magnitude of the association between post-event rumination and social anxiety varied as a function of questionnaire and/or task utilized. We included all studies reporting a correlation between post-event rumination and social anxiety symptomatology. Fisher's z correlation coefficients were calculated through random-effect meta-analyses. Results indicated a moderate association between post-event rumination and social anxiety symptomatology (r = 0.45, p < 0.001, 95%CI [0.40–0.50]). Subgroup meta-analyses indicated that the type of questionnaire used to assess post-event rumination (Q = 44.36, df = 3, p < 0.001) and social anxiety (Q = 26.44, df = 8, p < 0.001), as well as the task conducted prior to assessing post-event rumination (Q = 14.31, df = 2, p < 0.001), influenced the effect size. This study demonstrates a moderate relation between post-event rumination and social anxiety across the anxiety spectrum, illustrating the importance of treatments specifically targeting post-event rumination. Moreover, we highlight the importance of taking care when designing studies to explore relations between post-event rumination and social anxiety.