Marital status of schizophrenic and alcoholic patients

Previous reports from treated psychiatric populations have reported a higher risk of mental illness among married females; however, community surveys often do not show this prevalence. Three referral groups, consisting of 488 subjects who were mentally ill but not seeking psychiatric treatment, provided a third type of population. For both sexes, combined drug and alcohol abusers were more likely to be divorced than to be married when compared to the rest of the study population (p less than .05). Both schizophrenia and drug and alcohol abuse showed differential findings by marital status and by sex, with the likelihood of more mentally ill females than males being married in these treatment populations.