Schools of Population Health and Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia,
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2014 Jan;49(1):121-32. doi: 10.1007/s00127-013-0749-0. Epub 2013 Aug 6.
Marital conflict and/or marital breakdown are known pathways to the onset of depression. Few studies however have examined the possibility that depression can lead to a decrease in marital quality and an increase in marital breakdown. Depression may be an important pathway to a decline in martial quality.
A birth cohort study with women (mothers) recruited early in pregnancy and followed for 21 years. Using repeated measures analysis for four waves of data collection we use GEE to examine the extent to which symptoms of depression predict subsequent poor martial quality in women and poor marital quality predicts subsequent depression.
A bidirectional association between poor marital quality and depression is observed. After removing those who had pre-existing poor marital quality we note that depression predicts subsequent poor martial quality. Similarly, we note that poor marital quality predicts subsequent depression. These associations are all statistically significant and of a similar magnitude.
Over the maternal reproductive life course there is a long-term trajectory of reduced marital quality and increased depression. Maternal depression is as likely to lead to a decline in marital quality as poor martial quality is likely to lead to increased levels of depression. There may be a need to develop intervention programmes to reduce this long-term pattern of change.
婚姻冲突和/或婚姻破裂是抑郁发作的已知途径。然而，很少有研究探讨抑郁是否会导致婚姻质量下降和婚姻破裂增加的可能性。抑郁可能是婚姻质量下降的重要途径。
一项对女性（母亲）进行的队列研究，在妊娠早期招募并随访 21 年。我们使用重复测量分析对四次数据收集进行分析，使用广义估计方程（GEE）来检验抑郁症状在多大程度上预测女性随后的婚姻质量下降和婚姻质量下降预测随后的抑郁。
观察到婚姻质量差和抑郁之间存在双向关联。在去除那些已经存在婚姻质量差的人后，我们注意到抑郁预测随后的婚姻质量下降。同样，我们注意到婚姻质量差预测随后的抑郁。这些关联均具有统计学意义且大小相似。
在女性的生殖生命周期中，婚姻质量持续下降，抑郁程度持续增加。母亲的抑郁既可能导致婚姻质量下降，婚姻质量差也可能导致抑郁程度增加。可能需要制定干预计划来减少这种长期的变化模式。
