Background
Chronic heart failure (HF) is associated with psychologic distress for patients and
their spouses. Although research indicates that a patient's distress can influence
the course of illness, less is known about possible effects of a spouse's distress
on the patient or of a patient's distress on the health of the spouse.
Methods and Results
Baseline home interviews of 60 patients with HF (43 men, 17 women) and their spouses
included assessments of each partner's psychologic distress (Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25)
and perceived general health (Short Form-36 Questionnaire), as well as severity of
patients' HF symptoms. We repeated the health and HF-symptom assessments in follow-up
interviews 6 months later. As hypothesized, the spouse's distress at baseline predicted
an unfavorable course of patients' HF symptoms and general health over the next 6
months, independently of the patient's own baseline distress. There were no prospective
effects of the patient's distress on the spouse's health, however, suggesting that
partner distress had asymmetric health consequences for patients and spouses.
Conclusion
The results complement other evidence linking marital quality to the course of HF
and highlight the importance of looking beyond the patient to improve prediction of
health outcomes.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 22, 2009
Footnotes
This study was supported by Award 0051286Z from the American Heart Association, Dallas Texas.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
