Background:
The influences of one partner's mental health on the other one are well studied. However, the reciprocal co-influences between the partners are less known. We would like to examine the hypothesis of a "spousal similarity effect", that is, if the influences between men and women are bidirectional or gender-specific uni-directional. Recent longitudinal studies concluded to unidirectional effect from men to women on cognition, well-being or depressive symptoms. We examined how the mental health's trajectory of one partner impact on the trajectory of the other one, and reciprocally, among middle-aged couples. Moreover, we examined how satisfaction with living in couple influences the trajectories of mental health of each partner and of the other one. We supposed that one partner's mental health can vary due to the satisfaction with living in couple.
Method:
Our sample is constituted of 624 respondents living in couple who participated to the Swiss Panel Households survey (a national probability sample of Swiss Households) between 2000 and 2004 without interruptions (baseline Mage 46.8 for men, 44.2 for women). Mental health was assessed by two indicators (between 0, never, and 10, always), one for depression and one for optimism. Stable and momentary variations of mental health of both partners were modelled with a multi-construct latent-state trait model.
Results:
Men and women had a high level of mental health (respectively 8.67 and 8.05). Both men and women have a mostly stable mental health: 75% of the variance of the observed variables was accounted by the stable part of mental health. Auto-regressive impact of mental health of one wave upon the next one was significant, but low (0.2), for men and women. Stable mental health of one partner impacted on the stable component of the other one: correlation between partner's trait factors was 0.26. However, the impact of fluctuations of one partner did not influence on mental health's fluctuations of the partner one year later. The impact of satisfaction of living together on mental health fluctuation was significant for both men and women, but was systematically stronger for men (.35 to.46) than for women (.34 to.42). (to be completed...).
Discussion:
Men and women were mostly stable in their mental health and the stability of one partner had an impact on the stability of the other partner. However, variability of one partners' mental health did not influence the other partner, either through cross-sectional or cross-lagged influences. This means that variation in mental health was not due to the partner's mental health but to other situational influences. Moreover, despite the influence was significant for both partners, men were more sensible to the satisfaction of living in couple than women. (to be completed...)
