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Marital support, spousal contact and the course of mild hypertension
Brian Baker1, John Paul Szalai, Miney Paquette
1University Health Network, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. brian.baker@utoronto.ca
Objective And Methods:
To define marital support (MS) and its correlates in a sample of mild hypertensives where marital adjustment (by Dyadic Adjustment Scale, DAS) was related to 3-year left ventricular mass, a secondary analysis was performed on 103 men and women who underwent 24-h ambulatory BP (ABP) monitoring, M-mode echocardiography and completed psychosocial questionnaires at baseline and 3 years.
Results:
MS, defined as the presence of both marital satisfaction and cohesion (upper quartiles of DAS subscales) at baseline, predicted 3-year left ventricular mass (P=.007), which decreased 8% in the MS group and increased 6.26% in the low MS group. The MS group also had lower 24-h diastolic BP over 3 years (P=.016) than the low MS group. Based on the amount of spousal contact during ABP, MS subjects spent much more time together after 3 years than at baseline (P=.008) and compared to the low MS group (P=.027).
Conclusion:
MS, a construct of both the quality and quantity of contact between spouses, was related to improved 3-year outcome in mild hypertension. Prospective clarification of the role of MS in mild hypertension is required.
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