Parallel contagion phenomenon of concordant mental disorders among married couples: a nationwide cohort study

Abstract

BackgroundThe aggregation of mental disorders in couples, as reported by prior research, indicates the effect of familial environments and warrants attention. However, the concordant categories of mental disorders in couples remain unclear. This study investigated spousal concordance for the category of mental disorders among couples throughout Taiwan by using factors associated with such disorders.Methods5643 couples in the 2002–2013 Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database were analysed and compared with propensity-matched 5643 non-couples. Twelve independent variables, including spouse and shared characteristics, and the category of mental disorders were analysed, mainly by using multinomial logistic regression.ResultsThe determined prevalence rates for concordant categories of mental disorder were 0.19% for affective disorders, 6.96% for anxiety disorders, and 3.15% of other mental disorders. Multinomial logistic regression results revealed that two spouses were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with the same category of the aforementioned mental disorders (ORs=2.914, 1.776 and 1.727, respectively). Other associated factors included gender, age, occupation, comorbidity and region. The odds of concordances were significantly higher in couples than in non-couples.ConclusionsA category of mental disorder in one spouse is a determinant of that in the other spouse. This study extended the emotional contagion theory to the phenomenon of parallel contagion to reflect the three concordances, suggesting a direction of family-based mental health intervention, particularly prevention for the same category of mental disorders in couples. Policymakers should strengthen the coping strategies of the caring spouse and external support system to psychiatrically vulnerable families.

Baby Boomers as Caregivers: Results From the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in 44 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, 2015–2017

“…Some studies suggest that caregiving can increase the risk for some chronic conditions, including heart disease, although some studies find no effect (7,19,20). Evidence also indicates that spouses and partners have similar perceived health and disability status, which might result from shared environments (21)(22)(23). Regardless, whether caregiving contributes to the development of chronic health conditions or reflects common risk factors, caregiving might affect chronic disease management.…”

Spousal Concordance in Dietary Behaviors and Metabolic Components, and Their Association: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Most of the previous similar studies investigated the spousal concordance pattern, i.e., the husband-wife association, for lifestyle factors and selected diseases separately. Some reported that there was spousal concordance of cancer [33]; depression [34]; mental disorders [35]; physical frailty [36]; and metabolic components, including overweight/obesity [16,17,34], diabetes [18][19][20]34,37], dysglycemia [17,34], and hypertension [12,16,21,22] among couples. However, one Japanese study revealed that spousal concordance in metabolic components was weak and modest [38].…”

Application of the dyadic data analysis in behavioral medicine research: marital satisfaction and anxiety in infertile couples

“…Contrary to the APIM, the other cause of each person’s Y variable is not the partner’s X variable, but the partner’s Y variable. As one example, the MIM framework is useful to investigate marital satisfaction because of the reciprocity of this concept in relationship researches [ 25 , 26 ]. The details of the method of estimation for MIM are discussed in Ref [ 10 , 27 ].…”