Marital Status, Partner Satisfaction, and Depressive Symptoms in Older Men and Women

Philip D. St. John · Patrick R. Montgomery

98 citations0/0 files storedThe Canadian Journal of Psychiatry

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Attachment and Relationship Dynamics Health disparities and outcomes Health and Well-being Studies

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To determine if marital status is associated with depressive symptoms in men and women, and to determine if partner satisfaction is associated with depressive symptoms. METHODS: Community-dwelling adults (n = 1751) aged 65 years and older were sampled from a representative population-based registry. Age, sex, education, and marital status were self-reported. Satisfaction with living partner was assessed with an item from the terrible-delightful scale. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression was used to assess depressive symptoms, with a score of 15 or more indicating depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Only 3% of the sample were dissatisfied with their living partner, and those who were dissatisfied with their living partner had higher levels of depressive symptoms. Proportions of men with depressive symptoms were: 20.6% for never married; 19.2% for separated or divorced; 17.3% for widowed; 7.3% for married (satisfied); and 38.1% for married (dissatisfied) (chi square = 32.98, df = 4, P < 0.001). In women, the results were different: 11.8% for never married; 23.1% for separated or divorced; 15.4% for widowed; 14.4% for married (satisfied); and 41.9% for married (dissatisfied) (chi square = 18.33, df = 4, P < 0.001). In logistic regression models, a significant interaction term was seen for Marital status Sex. In stratified models, adjusting for age and education, an effect of marital status was seen in men, but not in women. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of marriage on depressive symptoms in men and women may be different, with lower levels of depressive symptoms in married men, compared with unmarried men, but similar rates in married women, compared with unmarried women. Dissatisfaction with their partner was uncommon, but highly associated with depressive symptoms.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 98 citations exist upstream.

References

1977The CES-D Scale 1976Social Indicators of Well-Being 2004Reducing Suicidal Ideation and Depressive Symptoms in Depressed Older Primary Care Patients 2006Marital status and mortality in the elderly: A systematic review and meta-analysis 1992Widowhood and Depression: Explaining Long-Term Gender Differences in Vulnerability 2006Descriptive Epidemiology of Major Depression in Canada 1980Satisfaction and happiness 2006Marital status and longevity in the United States population

Cited by

2018Prevalence of common mental disorders in widowhood: A systematic review and meta-analysis 2022Association of depressive symptoms with marital status among the middle-aged and elderly in Rural China–Serial mediating effects of sleep time, pain and life satisfaction 2020The prevalence of depressive symptoms and its determinants among adults in mainland China: Results from a national household survey 2015Are Married Men Healthier than Single Women? A Gender Comparison of the Health Effects of Marriage and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia 2020Determinants and impact of role-related time use allocation on self-reported health among married men and women: a cross-national comparative study

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.