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Longitudinal associations between marital quality and sleep quality in older adulthood

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Abstract

The current study examined how changes in marital quality are associated with changes in sleep quality in older adults over an 8-year period. Older adults from the Health and Retirement Study completed measures of both marital support/strain and sleep quality in 2006, 2010, and 2014 (N = 4981). We used latent growth curve models to examine intraindividual change in support, strain, and sleep quality. Further, we examined interrelationships between changes in each of these three indicators. Results showed that higher marital quality was associated with better sleep at baseline. We also found that marital quality and sleep quality were coordinated over time—as marital quality increased, so did sleep quality. When this covariation was accounted, the prospective effects of baseline marital quality on changes in sleep quality were not found. The current study provided evidence for a long-term temporal coordination of marital quality and sleep quality in older adults.

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Notes

  1. Previous research links depression with both marital quality (e.g. Beach, Katz, Kim, & Brody, 2003) and sleep quality (e.g. Franzen & Buysse, 2008). In a series of supplementary analyses, we included a measure of depression (A modified eight-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale; CES-D; Radloff, 1977) as a control. These results, in Supplementary Table 1, reveal that the results do not substantively change from main analyses presented below.

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Acknowledgements

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The Health and Retirement Study is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA U01AG09740) and is conducted by the University of Michigan.

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  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State University, 552 W. Circle Drive, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Ji Hyun Lee & Lawrence B. Schiamberg

  2. Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, 316 Physics Rd, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    William J. Chopik

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Lee, J.H., Chopik, W.J. & Schiamberg, L.B. Longitudinal associations between marital quality and sleep quality in older adulthood. J Behav Med 40, 821–831 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9850-2

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