Anxious attachment and self-reported depressive symptomatology in women

Lack of intimacy has been identified as an important provoking agent that increases the risk of depressive symptoms in women. This study precisely characterized lack of intimacy by assessing a woman's attachment style and investigated the specificity of association between depressive symptoms and an anxious attachment pattern.

Four hundred and twenty women participated in this cross-sectional study of depressive symptomatology and anxious attachment. All participants completed the following measures: a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Reciprocal Attachment Questionnaire, the Social Support Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Global Assessment of Recent Stress Scale.

A score of 16 or above on the CES-D, which indicates the presence of depressive symptoms, was used to divide the sample into 2 groups: a depressed group (N = 129) and a nondepressed group (N = 291). We found that women in the depressive symptomatology group were more likely than women in the nondepressive symptomatology group to exhibit anxious attachment and adverse social and cognitive characteristics. Lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of recent stress were also predictive of depressive symptomatology. Feared loss of the attachment figure and a lack of use of the attachment figure were independent predictors of depressive symptomatology in the same model.

The feared loss of security associated with an attachment figure seems to be related to an increased likelihood of depressive symptoms.