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CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association... Nov 2021
Topics: Bereavement; Death; Female; Humans; Male; Parent-Child Relations; Professional-Family Relations; Spouses
PubMed: 34750180
DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.211127 -
CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association... Nov 2023
Topics: Humans; Nuclear Family; Spouses; Patients; Delirium
PubMed: 37984931
DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.230833-f -
Diabetes Care Jun 2021We investigated the risk of depression and anxiety in people whose spouse did or did not have diabetes. We also examined associations between depression and anxiety and...
OBJECTIVE
We investigated the risk of depression and anxiety in people whose spouse did or did not have diabetes. We also examined associations between depression and anxiety and severity of spouse's diabetes.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
We analyzed prospective self-reported data about diagnosed depression/anxiety and diabetes in cohabiting couples in the national Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) during 1999-2017 ( = 13,500, 128,833 person-years of follow-up, median follow-up 8.1 years). We used Poisson models to estimate incidence and incidence rate ratios (IRRs) of depression/anxiety, according to spouse's diabetes status overall and by severity of diabetes.
RESULTS
Age-, sex-, and race-adjusted incidence of depression/anxiety was 8.0/1,000 person-years (95% CI 6.5, 9.6) among those whose spouse had diabetes and 6.5/1,000 person-years (95% CI 6.0, 6.9) among those whose spouse did not have diabetes. Those whose spouse had diabetes had higher risk of depression/anxiety (IRR 1.24 [95% CI 1.01, 1.53]). Those whose spouse had diabetes-related limitations in daily activities (IRR 1.89 [95% CI 1.35, 2.67]) and diabetes combined with other chronic conditions (IRR 2.34 [95% CI 1.78, 3.09]) were more likely to develop depression/anxiety, while those whose spouse had diabetes with no limitations or additional chronic conditions had incidence of depression/anxiety similar to that of subjects whose spouses did not have diabetes.
CONCLUSIONS
People living with a spouse with diabetes are at higher risk of developing depression/anxiety than people whose spouse does not have diabetes; this risk is driven by the severity of the spouse's diabetes. Strategies to address the impacts of diabetes on families need to be devised and tested.
Topics: Anxiety; Depression; Diabetes Mellitus; Humans; Incidence; Prospective Studies; Spouses
PubMed: 33863752
DOI: 10.2337/dc20-2652 -
PLoS Genetics Nov 2021Spousal comparisons have been proposed as a design that can both reduce confounding and estimate effects of the shared adulthood environment. However, assortative...
Spousal comparisons have been proposed as a design that can both reduce confounding and estimate effects of the shared adulthood environment. However, assortative mating, the process by which individuals select phenotypically (dis)similar mates, could distort associations when comparing spouses. We evaluated the use of spousal comparisons, as in the within-spouse pair (WSP) model, for aetiological research such as genetic association studies. We demonstrated that the WSP model can reduce confounding but may be susceptible to collider bias arising from conditioning on assorted spouse pairs. Analyses using UK Biobank spouse pairs found that WSP genetic association estimates were smaller than estimates from random pairs for height, educational attainment, and BMI variants. Within-sibling pair estimates, robust to demographic and parental effects, were also smaller than random pair estimates for height and educational attainment, but not for BMI. WSP models, like other within-family models, may reduce confounding from demographic factors in genetic association estimates, and so could be useful for triangulating evidence across study designs to assess the robustness of findings. However, WSP estimates should be interpreted with caution due to potential collider bias.
Topics: Adult; Body Mass Index; Cohort Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Sexual Behavior; Spouses; United Kingdom
PubMed: 34735433
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009883 -
Communications Biology Nov 2023Spouses may affect each other's sleeping behaviour. In 47,420 spouse-pairs from the UK Biobank, we found a weak positive phenotypic correlation between spouses for...
Spouses may affect each other's sleeping behaviour. In 47,420 spouse-pairs from the UK Biobank, we found a weak positive phenotypic correlation between spouses for self-reported sleep duration (r = 0.11; 95% CI = 0.10, 0.12) and a weak inverse correlation for chronotype (diurnal preference) (r = -0.11; -0.12, -0.10), which replicated in up to 127,035 23andMe spouse-pairs. Using accelerometer data on 3454 UK Biobank spouse-pairs, the correlation for derived sleep duration was similar to self-report (r = 0.12; 0.09, 0.15). Timing of diurnal activity was positively correlated (r = 0.24; 0.21, 0.27) in contrast to the inverse correlation for chronotype. In Mendelian randomization analysis, positive effects of sleep duration (mean difference=0.13; 0.04, 0.23 SD per SD) and diurnal activity (0.49; 0.03, 0.94) were observed, as were inverse effects of chronotype (-0.15; -0.26, -0.04) and snoring (-0.15; -0.27, -0.04). Findings support the notion that an individual's sleep may impact that of their partner, promoting opportunities for sleep interventions at the family-level.
Topics: Humans; Chronotype; Circadian Rhythm; Sleep; Sleep Duration; Spouses; Male; Female; Mendelian Randomization Analysis
PubMed: 37957254
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-05521-7 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Aug 2022Marital attachment plays an important role in maintaining intimate personal relationships and sustaining psychological well-being. Mate-selection theories suggest that...
Marital attachment plays an important role in maintaining intimate personal relationships and sustaining psychological well-being. Mate-selection theories suggest that people are more likely to marry someone with a similar personality and social status, yet evidence for the association between personality-based couple similarity measures and marital satisfaction has been inconsistent. A more direct and useful approach for understanding fundamental processes underlying marital satisfaction is to probe similarity of dynamic brain responses to maritally and socially relevant communicative cues, which may better reflect how married couples process information in real time and make sense of their mates and themselves. Here, we investigate shared neural representations based on intersubject synchronization (ISS) of brain responses during free viewing of marital life-related, and nonmarital, object-related movies. Compared to randomly selected pairs of couples, married couples showed significantly higher levels of ISS during viewing of marital movies and ISS between married couples predicted higher levels of marital satisfaction. ISS in the default mode network emerged as a strong predictor of marital satisfaction and canonical correlation analysis revealed a specific relation between ISS in this network and shared communication and egalitarian components of martial satisfaction. Our findings demonstrate that brain similarities that reflect real-time mental responses to subjective perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about interpersonal and social interactions are strong predictors of marital satisfaction, reflecting shared values and beliefs. Our study advances foundational knowledge of the neurobiological basis of human pair bonding.
Topics: Brain; Communication; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Marriage; Personal Satisfaction; Personality; Spouses
PubMed: 35981139
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202515119 -
The American Journal of Geriatric... May 2021
Topics: Aged; Alzheimer Disease; Caregivers; Health Expenditures; Health Status; Humans; Spouses
PubMed: 33168389
DOI: 10.1016/j.jagp.2020.10.003 -
BMC Geriatrics Jun 2021Being an informal carer of a person with dementia (PwD) can have a negative effect on the carer's health and quality of life, and spouse carers have been found to be...
BACKGROUND
Being an informal carer of a person with dementia (PwD) can have a negative effect on the carer's health and quality of life, and spouse carers have been found to be especially vulnerable. Yet relatively little is known about the care provided and support received by spouse carers. This study compares spouse carers to other informal carers of PwDs regarding their care provision, the support received and the psychosocial impact of care.
METHODS
The study was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey of a stratified random sample of the Swedish population aged 18 or over. The questionnaire explored how much care the respondent provided, the support received, and the psychosocial impact of providing care. Of 30,009 people sampled, 11,168 (37.7 %) responded, of whom 330 (2.95 %) were informal carers of a PwD.
RESULTS
In comparison to non-spouse carers, spouse carers provided more care more frequently, did so with less support from family or the local authority, while more frequently experiencing negative impacts on their social life and psychological and physical health. Spouse carers also received more carer support and more frequently experienced a closeness in their relationship with the care-recipient.
CONCLUSIONS
Spouse carers of PwD differed from non-spouse carers on virtually all aspects of their care situation. Policy and practice must be more sensitive to how the carer-care-recipient relationship shapes the experience of care, so that support is based on an understanding of the individual carer's actual needs and preferences rather than on preconceptions drawn from a generalised support model.
Topics: Caregivers; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dementia; Humans; Quality of Life; Spouses; Sweden
PubMed: 34078292
DOI: 10.1186/s12877-021-02264-0 -
Behavior Therapy May 2022The dual-process model proposes that early and later bereavement involves different types of stressors and adaptation processes (Stroebe & Schut, 1999, 2010). It is thus...
The dual-process model proposes that early and later bereavement involves different types of stressors and adaptation processes (Stroebe & Schut, 1999, 2010). It is thus possible that different factors facilitate adaptation during the early months versus subsequent years following widowhood. Elevated depressive symptoms, though prevalent after widowhood, may indicate problematic adaptation, as they are associated with poor long-term physical and mental health outcomes. We predicted that neutral death acceptance would be associated with less increase in depression during early widowhood (when confronted with loss-oriented stressors), whereas perceived control would predict depressive symptom decline during later widowhood (when adapting to controllable restoration-oriented stressors). Older adults (N = 265) reported on neutral death acceptance, perceived control, and depression before widowhood and on depression 0.5, 1.5, and 4.0 years after the death of their spouse. Bilinear spline growth modeling revealed that, on average, depressive symptoms increased from before to 0.5 years after spouse death and fell from 0.5 to 4.0 years after spouse death. Neutral death acceptance predicted a smaller increase in depression from before to 0.5 years after spouse death, as well as a smaller subsequent decrease in depression from 0.5 to 4.0 years after spouse death. Perceived control predicted a larger decrease in depression from 0.5 to 4.0 years after spouse death. Neutral death acceptance and perceived control had unique associations with resilience and recovery throughout early and later widowhood. These variables may be fruitful targets in interventions for depression throughout the full course of widowhood.
Topics: Aged; Bereavement; Female; Humans; Spouses; Widowhood
PubMed: 35473647
DOI: 10.1016/j.beth.2021.11.002 -
The Journal of Pain Oct 2019Patient beliefs and perceptions about the causes and meaning of their chronic pain are related to their psychosocial functioning. Beliefs and perceptions about chronic...
Patient beliefs and perceptions about the causes and meaning of their chronic pain are related to their psychosocial functioning. Beliefs and perceptions about chronic pain held by spouses may also be related to patient functioning. We used a laboratory procedure to evaluate whether spouse beliefs about and perceptions of chronic pain were related to spouse negative responses toward patients with chronic low back pain during a conflictual discussion and to their attributions about patient pain behavior during a subsequent pain-induction task. Patients (n = 71) and their spouses (n = 71) participated in a 10-minute discussion followed by the patient undergoing a 10-minute structured pain behavior task. Findings were that a) spouse perceptions that patient's pain was a mystery were significantly related to greater patient perceived spouse critical/invalidating responses toward the patient during the discussion; and b) spouse perceptions that patient's pain was a mystery were related to internal and negative attributions spouses made while observing patients display pain behaviors during the structured pain behavior task. Inasmuch as both spouse critical/invalidating speech toward patients and negative attributions regarding the cause of patient behavior are related to poor patient functioning, spouse uncertainty about the source and potential legitimacy of their partner's pain may play crucial roles in affecting patient well-being. PERSPECTIVE: Spouse beliefs about and perceptions of patient chronic pain were related to spouse behavior toward patients during a discussion and to attributions explaining patient pain during physical activity. If spouse confusion and doubt about patient pain is related to negative behavior and attributions, then modifying these perceptions may be a fundamental intervention target.
Topics: Adult; Chronic Pain; Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Illness Behavior; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Middle Aged; Musculoskeletal Pain; Social Perception; Spouses; Uncertainty
PubMed: 30954540
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2019.04.001