| Background Depression has become a public health concern that affects the physical and mental health of college students. Acute stress responses is a risk factor for depression,exploring the relationship and mechanism between acute stress responses and depression is of great significance for preventing and intervening depression in college students. Objective To explore the relationship between acute stress responses and depression,and to analyze the mediating role of rumination and the moderated role of perceived social support,so as to provide reference for the prevention and intervention of depression in college students. Methods From March to April 2020,a sample of 1355 Chinese college students in Hubei Province,Jiangxi Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were selected using cluster sampling method. All students were subjected to complete Acute Stress Disorder Scale（ASDS）, Ruminative Responses Scale（RRS）,Brief form of the Perceived Social Support Questionnaire（F-SozU）and Patient Health Questionnaire（PHQ-9）. Pearson correlation analysis was used to examine the correlation between the scores of each scale.The macro program Process 3.3 were used to analyze the mediating role of rumination between acute stress response and depression, as well as the moderated role of perceived social support. Results A total of 1303 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective recovery rate of 96.16%.The results of Person correlation analysis showed that ASDS scores were positively correlated with RRS socores and PHQ-9 scores（r=0.528~0.665, P＜0.01）.The path analysis results showed that Rumination played a partial mediating role between acute stress responses and depression,with a mediating effect value of 0.273（95% CI：0.222~0.328）,and the mediating effect accounted for 68.59% of the total effect. Perceived social support played a moderated role in the in the latter half of the mediating effect of rumination（β=–0.004, P＜0.01）. Conclusion Rumination played a partial mediating role between acute stress response and depression in college students, and the perceptive social support played a moderated role between rumination and depression. |