An association between relationship satisfaction and mental health symptoms has been well established in research. Specifically, mental health concerns, such as trauma symptoms and depression, have been related to lower relationship satisfaction. Research has explored the correlation between relationship satisfaction and mental health symptoms during treatment but not among active-duty military and not examining a between-person and within-person effect. Therefore, the present study investigates these variables among 178 married, activeduty service members undergoing individual outpatient treatment. A linear mixed-effects regression model estimated a linear growth curve for distress and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) outcomes, controlling for demographic, relationship, and military variables. Results indicated that participants with higher average relationship satisfaction had lower average distress and PTSD scores. Higher average relationship satisfaction was not associated with the rate of change in distress and PTSD across time. For individuals whose increases in relationship satisfaction were greater than expected, there was an associated within-person decrease in distress and PTSD scores, accounting for the between-person component of change in satisfaction. The identification of a within-person association separate from the between-person association suggests that there was a longitudinal correspondence between change in relationship satisfaction and change in distress and PTSD scores within individuals. Though limited by a lack of precise interventional data, this study provides preliminary evidence that individual treatments may help intrapersonal symptom improvement by attending to perceived relationship satisfaction. These findings are particularly relevant to military psychology.
Background Trait negative affect and trait positive affect are affective vulnerabilities to depressive symptoms in adolescence and adulthood. While trait affect and the state affect characteristic of depressive symptoms are proposed to be theoretically distinct, no studies have established that these constructs are statistically distinct. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to determine whether the trait affect (e.g. temperament dimensions) that predicts depressive symptoms and the state affect characteristic of depressive symptoms are statistically distinct among early adolescents and adults. We hypothesized that trait negative affect, trait positive affect, and depressive symptoms would represent largely distinct factors in both samples. Method Participants were 268 early adolescents (53.73% female) and 321 young adults (70.09% female) who completed self-report measures of demographic information, trait affect, and depressive symptoms. Results Principal axis factoring with oblique rotation for both samples indicated distinct adolescent factor loadings and overlapping adult factor loadings. Confirmatory factor analyses in both samples supported distinct but related relationships between trait NA, trait PA, and depressive symptoms. Limitations Study limitations include our cross-sectional design that prevented examination of self-reported fluctuations in trait affect and depressive symptoms and the unknown potential effects of self-report biases among adolescents and adults. Conclusions Findings support existing theoretical distinctions between adolescent constructs but highlight a need to revise or remove items to distinguish measurements of adult trait affect and depressive symptoms. Adolescent trait affect and depressive symptoms are statistically distinct, but adult trait affect and depressive symptoms statistically overlap and warrant further consideration.
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