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Spousal suffering and partner's depression and cardiovascular disease: the Cardiovascular Health Study

Richard Schulz1, Scott R Beach, Randy S Hebert

  • 1Department of Psychiatry and University Center for Social and Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh, 121 University Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. schulz@pitt.edu

The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry : Official Journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry
|May 21, 2009
PubMed

Insights

Spousal suffering significantly increases a partner's risk for depression and cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study highlights the unique distress that marital suffering can cause, impacting both mental and physical health.

Area of Science:

  • Gerontology
  • Psychiatry
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Marital relationships significantly influence the health of older adults.
  • Understanding the bidirectional impact of spousal health on individual well-being is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine how a spouse's suffering affects their partner's risk of depression and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
  • To control for established risk factors for depression and CVD in this analysis.

Main Methods:

  • A longitudinal study of 1,330 older married couples from the Cardiovascular Health Study.
  • Assessed physical, psychological, and existential/spiritual indicators of suffering in one spouse.
  • Measured prevalent and incident depression and CVD in the other spouse.

Main Results:

  • Spousal suffering showed a dose-response relationship with the partner's current and future depression risk.
  • Husbands whose wives reported high suffering had higher prevalent CVD, controlling for baseline CVD.
  • No significant associations were found between wives' suffering and husbands' CVD, or between husbands' suffering and wives' CVD outcomes.

Conclusions:

  • Spousal suffering represents an independent source of distress within marriage.
  • This distress contributes significantly to both psychiatric and physical morbidity in partners.
  • Further research and clinical attention are warranted for the interpersonal effects of suffering in couples.
Abstract

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