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Predicting Daily Satisfaction with Spouse Responses Among People with Rheumatoid Arthritis

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Social support has been strongly linked to health outcomes. However, the factors associated with satisfaction with social support remain poorly understood.

Purpose

We examined the impact of different types of support, affect, marital satisfaction, personality, and disease-related variables on day-to-day and overall satisfaction with spouse responses.

Methods

Sixty-nine married people with rheumatoid arthritis completed an initial structured interview, followed by twice-daily phone interviews for 1 week.

Results

Higher levels of esteem support were associated with increased satisfaction, whereas negative spouse responses were related to decreased satisfaction across the day. Greater positive affect and lower pain were associated with higher concurrent satisfaction, but the effects did not last over the day. At the between-person level, older age and lower fatigue were related to higher satisfaction.

Conclusions

Several key factors related to support satisfaction were identified. Esteem support appeared to play a particularly important role and warrants attention in future research.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Drs. Esdaile and Chalmers and their colleagues at the Mary Pack Arthritis Center for their help in participant recruitment. The authors would also like to thank Drs. Cynthia Mathieson and Brian O’Connor for their feedback on a previous draft.

Funding

This research was supported by fellowships to the second author from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and grants to the third author from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Authors’ Statement of Conflict of Interest and Adherence to Ethical Standards

Authors R. Thomas Beggs, Susan Holtzman, and Anita DeLongis declare that they have no conflict of interest. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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  1. R. Thomas Beggs MA

    Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada, N1G 2W1

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC, Canada

    R. Thomas Beggs MA, Susan Holtzman PhD & Anita DeLongis PhD

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Beggs, R.T., Holtzman, S. & DeLongis, A. Predicting Daily Satisfaction with Spouse Responses Among People with Rheumatoid Arthritis. ann. behav. med. 50, 24–33 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-015-9728-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-015-9728-x

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