Marital Quality and Mental Health Among Caregiving Dyads

We examined whether the associations between marital quality and mental health were equally strong among dyads in which one spouse was providing care to a spouse (n = 155), parent (n = 61), or another adult (n = 176). Using Wave 2 of the NSHAP and actor-partner interdependence (APIM) models, we found significant differences (p=.004) among groups. Marital quality was negatively associated with one’s own depressive symptoms (b=-1.29) for husbands in the spousal caregiver group, whereas marital quality was negatively associated with one’s own depressive symptoms for wives in both the parental (b=-1.27) and other adult (b=-1.96) caregiver groups. The only partner effect was the negative association between wives’ marital quality and husbands’ depressive symptoms (b=-2.59) among dyads in which one spouse was a parental caregiver. These results point to the importance of understanding the context of caregiving when examining the protective effect of spouses’ marital quality on mental health.