This study examined whether marital functioning variables related uniquely to psychological distress and diagnoses of depressive disorder independent of pain severity and physical disability. Participants were 110 chronic musculoskeletal pain patients. Hierarchical regression results showed that marital variables (i.e. marital satisfaction, negative spouse responses to pain) contributed significantly to depressive and anxiety symptoms over and above the effects of pain severity and physical disability. In contrast, marital variables were not significantly related to diagnoses of depressive disorder (i.e. major depression, dysthymia, or both) after controlling for pain variables. In multivariate analyses, physical disability and marital satisfaction were uniquely related to depressive symptoms whereas physical disability, pain severity, and negative spouse responses to pain were uniquely related to anxiety symptoms. Only physical disability was uniquely related to major depression. The results suggest that models of psychological distress in chronic pain patients might be enhanced by attributing greater importance to interpersonal functioning and increasing attention to anxiety.

The current longitudinal study was conducted to examine the short-term impact of severe marital stressors and marital discord on psychological distress and marital dissolution in two groups of women. One group consisted of women reporting a recent severe marital stressor (e.g., infidelity, threat of separation), whereas the maritally discordant group consisted of women denying a recent marital stressor but reporting similar levels of marital discord. Results indicated that baseline marital discord was related to later depressive and anxiety symptoms for the control group only. In addition, women experiencing a marital stressor reported reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms within several months after the event, after which their symptoms leveled off. In contrast, the control group’s symptoms remained stable over all three assessments. Those in the marital stressor group were significantly more likely to separate or divorce than were those in the control group. These results are discussed in light of models of marital and psychological distress.

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