Understanding general and specific connections between psychopathology and marital distress: A model based approach.

Abstract

Marital distress is linked to many types of mental disorders; however, no study to date has examined this link in the context of empirically-based hierarchical models of psychopathology. There may be general associations between low levels of marital quality and broad groups of comorbid psychiatric disorders as well as links between marital adjustment and specific types of mental disorders. The authors examined this issue in a sample (N=929 couples) of currently married couples from the Minnesota Twin Family Study who completed self-report measures of relationship adjustment and were also assessed for common mental disorders. Structural equation modeling indicated that a) higher standing on latent factors of internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) psychopathology was associated with lower standing on latent factors of general marital adjustment for both husbands and wives, b) the magnitude of these effects was similar across husbands and wives, and c) there were no residual associations between any specific mental disorder and overall relationship adjustment after controlling for the INT and EXT factors. These findings point to the utility of hierarchical models in understanding psychopathology and its correlates. Much of the link between mental disorder and marital distress operated at the level of broad spectrums of psychopathological variation (i.e., higher levels of marital distress were associated with disorder comorbidity), suggesting that the temperamental core of these spectrums contributes not only to symptoms of mental illness but to the behaviors that lead to impaired marital quality in adulthood.

Beyond comorbidity: Toward a dimensional and hierarchical approach to understanding psychopathology across the life span

“…Similar to the literature on Process 1 ( Cumulative risk influences levels of IE ), studies that have compared the predictive validity of individual syndromes with the predictive validity of the IE spectra have found that IE account for nearly all of the variance in adaptive functioning, while the role of individual syndromes is small and usually non-significant (e.g., Eaton, Krueger, et al, 2013; South et al, 2011). This is depicted in Figure 3 where there are no direct paths from manifest syndromes to adaptive functioning.…”

“…The spectra have been found to predict indicators of severe functional impairment such as suicide attempts, hospitalisations, disability days, use of welfare, violence convictions, and physical health (e.g., Caspi et al, 2014; Eaton, Krueger, et al, 2013; Sunderland & Slade, 2015). IE also account more broadly for adaptive functioning in the form of marital distress (South, Krueger, & Iacono, 2011), peer relationship difficulties (van Lier & Koot, 2010), academic functioning (Moilanen et al, 2010), and social competence (Lansford et al, 2006). Essentially, higher levels of IE are related to greater functional impairment, and this can be roughly operationalised by the number of syndromes for which an individual meets diagnostic criteria.…”

Transdiagnostic psychiatric disorder risk associated with early age of menarche: A latent modeling approach

“…Also, although we did compare the associations among both individual and latent disorders in separate analyses, it is possible that disorders at both levels are meaningful [89]. Future studies might examine the potentially hierarchical nature of disorders to determine the extent to which the associations we report here for individual disorders are completely explained by the variance in the latent disorders [90], adapting recently developed methods [91]. Finally, it is important to consider that these relationships may differ in meaningful ways among adolescent girls.…”

The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): A Dimensional Alternative to Traditional Nosologies

“…Indeed, initial studies found that the spectra, rather than variance specific to individual diagnoses, account for dysfunction: (a) the internalizing dimension fully explained impairment associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms (Markon, 2010b), (b) the internalizing spectrum captured the majority of suicidality, treatment seeking, and disability present in emotional disorders (Sunderland & Slade, 2015), (c) the thought disorder dimension fully accounted for impairment associated with psychosis (Jonas & Markon, 2013;Kotov, Chang et al, 2011), and (d) the internalizing and disinhibited externalizing spectra jointly fully explained related marital distress (South, Krueger, & Iacono, 2011). Other studies did not compare spectra to diagnoses, but they documented robust associations of the internalizing, disinhibited externalizing, and thought disorder spectra with a wide range of criteria, including academic difficulties in kindergarten through high school, unemployment, relationship problems (e.g., divorce or never marrying), use of public assistance, suicide attempts, violence convictions, hospitalizations, and a range of systemic medical conditions (Caspi et al, 2014;Eaton et al, 2013;Lahey et al, 2012Lahey et al, , 2015Slade, 2007).…”