The Mediating Effects of Rumination Between Perceived Social Support and Alexithymia Among People Living With HIV in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

ABSTRACT: The current study aims to examine associations between perceived social support, rumination, and alexithymia among people living with HIV (PWH) in China, and the role of rumination in mediating the relationship between perceived social support and alexithymia. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 224 PWH recruited from Wuxi, China. We used the PROCESS macro for mediation and conditional process analysis, version 4.0, for SPSS to examine the relationship and mediating effects of rumination between perceived social support and alexithymia. Eventually, we found that intrusive rumination and purposeful rumination both played a partial mediating role between perceived social support and alexithymia, with each accounting for 37.61% (β = -0.265, p < .01) and 26.67% (β = 0.317, p < .05) of the total effect, respectively. Our findings suggest that targeting both intrusive rumination and purposeful rumination may enhance the impact of perceived social support on alexithymia among PWH.