The Ryle Marital Patterns Test as a predictor of symptoms of anxiety and depression in couples in the community

Abstract

The associations between marital relationships, as measured by the Ryle Marital Patterns Test, and symptoms of anxiety and depression as measured by the Interval General Health Questionnaire (I-GHQ), were assessed in 98 married couples in the community. Logistic regression analyses showed that symptoms of anxiety and depression in wives were best predicted by low ratings of affection exchange. Occupational class interacted with husbands' affection ratings, suggesting that in the nonmanual class only lower affection ratings were significantly associated with more symptoms. Anxiety in men was best predicted by low affection ratings while depression was best predicted by unemployment, by an affection discrepancy score indicating that more affection is given than received, and by a marriage which was rated as relatively more wife-dominated by wives and as relatively more husband-dominated by husbands.

Marital resemblance for obsessive–compulsive, anxious and depressive symptoms in a population-based sample

“…Our findings for depression support the results of the meta-analysis of Mathews & Reus (2001), who found little, but significant, marital resemblance for affective disorders. The finding of marital resemblance for anxiety symptoms in this study confirms various earlier reports in both clinical and population-based studies (Tambs, 1991 ;Zimmermann-Tansella & Lattanzi, 1991 ;McLeod, 1995 ;Galbaud du Fort et al 1998 ;Maes et al 1998 ;Dubuis-Stadelmann et al 2001), reporting correlations between 0.1 and 0.3 using either diagnostic or dimensional ratings of anxiety. Two studies did not find marital resemblance for anxiety disorders.…”

“…Findings for depressive and anxiety disorders, however, are not unequivocal. For anxiety disorder, some studies found no evidence of increased risk of anxiety disorder in spouses of patients with an anxiety disorder (Eagles et al 1987 ;Low et al 2007), but several other studies found an increased risk (Tambs, 1991 ;Zimmermann-Tansella & Lattanzi, 1991 ;McLeod, 1995 ;Galbaud du Fort et al 1998 ;Dubuis-Stadelmann et al 2001), with spousal correlations varying between 0.1 and 0.3. Only one study mentioned data on marital resemblance for obsessive-compulsive disease (OCD).…”