The association between intimate relationship discord and DSM-IV Axis I psychiatric disorders has been described in studies that oversampled White participants; however, the racial and ethnic differences in marital distress and divorce as well as in prevalence rates of some forms of psychopathology led us to hypothesize that the association between relationship discord and psychopathology would vary across races and ethnicities. Relationship quality and psychopathology were assessed in three national surveys (the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, the National Latino and Asian American Study, and the National Survey of American Life), for a total sample size of 10,057. We found that the log odds of being diagnosed with both narrow-band (e.g., major depressive disorder) and broad-band disorders (e.g., mood disorder) were negatively associated with relationship quality consistently across 11 different racial and ethnic groups. We discuss the implications of the cross-cultural reliability of the association between relationship discord and psychopathology in the context of etiological models and culturally competent practices.

The association between relationship quality and physical health is well established. We examined whether this association was similar across different races and ethnicities. Relationship quality and health were assessed in three national samples from the United States: the National Survey of American Life, the National Latino and Asian American Study, and the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (N = 9,020). Relationship quality was positively correlated with overall health across races and ethnicities; however, the association between relationship quality and specific health problems was inconsistent. Finally, there were no reliable differences between racial or ethnic groups in the magnitude of the relationship quality and physical health association.