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Psychiatric comorbidity in couples: a longitudinal study of 202,959 married and cohabiting individuals

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Abstract

Purpose

To examine whether partner’s psychiatric and somatic disorders are risk factors for incidence of psychiatric disorders among non-psychiatric individuals at baseline.

Methods

Register-based 6-year follow-up on Finns (106,935 men and 96,024 women aged 40 and over), living with a married or cohabiting partner at the end of 1997. The outcome measures included non-psychotic major depressive disorder (MDD), substance use disorder (SUD), and severe psychiatric disorder, evaluated using information on reimbursement for drug costs, purchases of prescription medication, and principal causes of hospitalization.

Results

Among persons whose partner had any psychiatric disorder, the incidence rate ratio (IRR) for own MDD, controlling for own age at baseline, was 1.58 (95% confidence interval 1.48–1.69) in men, and 1.58 (1.48–1.69) in women. Among persons whose partner had somatic hospitalization, the IRR for own MDD was 1.14 (1.08–1.20) in men and 1.20 (1.15–1.25) in women. Among both men and women, the highest risk for incidence of own MDD was among persons whose partner had both MDD and SUD (IRR 2.65, 1.67–4.21 and IRR 2.13, 1.62–2.80, respectively). Further adjustment for sociodemographic and union characteristics had little effect on the associations.

Conclusions

In married and cohabiting couples, partner’s somatic and particularly psychiatric morbidity associate with psychiatric disorders in non-psychiatric subjects, independent of sociodemographic and union characteristics. The healthy spouse’s care burden is a potential point of intervention in order to prevent new psychiatric morbidity, but also to provide the mentally ill first partner a chance to recover in a supportive family environment.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Academy of Finland and the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mental Health Problems and Substance Abuse Services Unit, National Institute for Health and Welfare, P.O. Box 30, 00271, Helsinki, Finland

    Kaisla Joutsenniemi

  2. Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Heta Moustgaard & Pekka Martikainen

  3. Department of Health, Functional Capacity and Welfare, National Institute for Health and Welfare, 00271, Helsinki, Finland

    Seppo Koskinen

  4. Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Samuli Ripatti

  5. Public Health Genomics, National Institute for Health and Welfare, 00271, Helsinki, Finland

    Samuli Ripatti

Authors
  1. Kaisla Joutsenniemi
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  2. Heta Moustgaard
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  3. Seppo Koskinen
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  4. Samuli Ripatti
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  5. Pekka Martikainen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kaisla Joutsenniemi.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 5.

Table 5 Incidence of major depressive disorder (MDD), substance use disorder (SUD) and severe psychiatric disorder in 1998–2003 according to own somatic health in 1996–1997 and own and partner’s social characteristics in 1997
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Joutsenniemi, K., Moustgaard, H., Koskinen, S. et al. Psychiatric comorbidity in couples: a longitudinal study of 202,959 married and cohabiting individuals. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 46, 623–633 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-010-0228-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-010-0228-9

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