Interpersonal and psychological correlates of marital dissatisfaction in late life: a review.

Developmental studies suggest that marital quality improves in old age (e.g., Guilford & Bengtson, 1979). However, many of the studies are replete with sampling biases that probably led to an overinflated positive report of marital satisfaction in older adults. Our review evaluated contemporary studies that have investigated interpersonal and psychological factors associated with dissatisfaction in long-term marriages. Recent investigations indicate that older marriages benefit from lower levels of conflict and greater sources of mutual pleasure following child-rearing cessation. Studies of social support in long-term marriages suggest that perceptions of spousal support are more strongly related to marital satisfaction and general well-being for older women than for men. A few investigations have found a significant relationship between depression and marital discord in older adult samples, and the causal flow between these two variables appears to be unidirectional in that depression has a detrimental impact on late-life marital quality. Indeed, depression has been found to mediate the link between many age-related stressors (e.g., ill health, retirement) and declines in marital adjustment. However, our preliminary analysis of marital adjustment within a depressed, older adult, outpatient sample of married individuals did not confirm statistically that marital discord is associated with depressive symptomatology. This, in part, was attributed to the very narrow range of older adults sampled (i.e., clinic patients suffering from depression). However, the majority of depressives characterized their marriages as discordant. The implications for these findings are discussed and future directions are offered.

Depression, self-esteem, sex, and age in a child and adolescent clinical sample.

Examines the relation between depression, self-esteem, sex, and age to determine if the previously reported associations between these variables in nonreferred samples remain consistent in a sample of clinically referred patients. Two hundred thirty-six participants between the ages of 6 and 17 years were included. All were consecutive referrals to an outpatient child and adolescent mood disorders program. Eighty-four percent met the criteria for at least 1 depressive disorder from the third and revised edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (major depressive disorder, dysthymia, both, depression NOS, or adjustment disorder with depressive mood). In keeping with previous reports, the data indicate an inverse relation between age and self-esteem and an even stronger inverse relation between depression and self-esteem. However, there was no evidence for a sex difference for self-esteem, alone or interactively with age. The implications of these findings in relation to the importance of self-esteem in depressed youth are discussed.

Psychometric properties and diagnostic utility of the Beck Anxiety Inventory and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory with older adult psychiatric outpatients.

In order to assess the psychometric properties and diagnostic utility of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) with older adults, these measures were administered to 217 older adult outpatients with mixed psychiatric disorders. Both the BAI and STAI scales demonstrated high internal reliabilities. The BAI demonstrated good factorial validity, with a somatic anxiety and a subjective anxiety factor emerging. In contrast, the STAI did not evidence factorial validity, with analyses failing to support presence of state and trait anxiety factors. Both the BAI and Trait Anxiety scale of the STAI demonstrated discriminant validity in separating patients with a current anxiety disorder from patients without such a disorder. However, the State Anxiety scale of the STAI did not discriminate between these groups. When used to predict presence of an anxiety disorder, no single cutting score for either the BAI or STAI proved optimal, due to tradeoffs between sensitivity and specificity. Results suggest that both the subjective subscale and total score on the BAI can be somewhat useful as a quick screening instrument in detecting presence of a current anxiety disorder for older adult psychiatric outpatients, although results were not as strong as previous findings regarding screening tests for depression in the elderly.

The development of a clinical rating scale for the McMaster model of family functioning.

This article describes the development and validation of the McMaster Clinical Rating Scale (MCRS). The MCRS is a 7-item scale designed to be completed by a trained rater after completion of an in-depth interview of the family. We present data from four new studies and review previously published articles concerning the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the MCRS. Adequate interrater reliability and rater stability were obtained. The MCRS was found to correlate significantly with the self-report Family Assessment Device and to discriminate between families in different phases of a depressive disorder.

Early identification of developmentally disabled and at-risk preschool children.

This study examined child-centered data (from birth to 7 years) and familial factors as possible predictors of disabilities in adolescence. The sample was taken from original participants in the National Collaborative Perinatal Project in Rhode Island who were also judged as handicapped after school entry. Results of the current study indicated that parental traits (i.e., maternal education) are more accurate predictors of adolescent status than the child's own behavior from birth to 3 years, whereas child-centered skills assessed at 4 and 7 years of age are better predictors than are familial factors. Overall, data suggest that early identification models which focus upon developmental delay or adverse medical events from birth to 3 years of age are inadequate in fully identifying children eventually judged to be handicapped. Screening initiatives must be developed that are multivariate (child and family focused) and account for differential weights of risk factors over time.

Motivations for childbearing and fertility behavior among urban and rural families of Iran.

PIP: A sample of 384 husbands and wives were randomly selected and interviewed to investigate the implication of fertility norms and motivations for childbearing on fertility and family planning behavior among Iranian families in urban and rural areas of Iran, after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The term "fertility behavior" refers to actual family size, which is defined as number of children the respondent has living at the time of the interview. "Family planning behavior" refers to the duration of time that the subject has used any birth control method(s). Rural families demonstrated larger actual and ideal family sizes than urban families. The rural sample had a median actual family size of 3.5 children and a median ideal family size of 4.7 children. For the urban sample these figures were 2.2 and 2.3, respectively. The median number of years married was 12.33 for rural and 13.91 for urban respondents. Urban respondents tended to emphasize the psychological and emotional benefits and liabilities associated with having children while rural respondents tended to emphasize both economic and security related motivations. Both groups endorsed infant mortality as a motivation for having more children. Male and female respondents were remarkably similar in their endorsed motivations. There was a significant positive correlation between desired and ideal family size. The correlations among ideal/desired family size and practicing birth control methods were the same and significant at the .001 level. The relationship between motivations for childbearing and years of practicing birth control methods was also significant at the .001 level. Stepwise regression analyses were performed to examine the important predictors of fertility and family planning behavior. For both actual family size and years on birth control, males and females were very similar in terms of predictor importance. Those respondents with less education and large ideal family size tended to have larger actual family size. Location (urban/rural) and parents, family size was weighted much more heavily for males than for females. Those respondents with greater education and who lived in an urban areas tended to have used birth control for longer periods of time. Ideal family size did not contribute significantly to this regression. Parents' family size and motivations for childbearing made marginal contributions to regressions on either dependent variable.^ieng

Personality types as measured by the 16 PF.

The possibility of isolating personality types using 16 PF profiles was studied by utilizing a Q-type factor analytic procedure. Four modal profiles, characteristic of major clusters of subjects, were derived and cross validated. These four major types successfully classified approximately 2/3 of the 16 PF protocols (n = 1037), and classified similar proportions of previously published profiles. Variation of classification rates as a function of race and sex was described, and strategies for utilizing the profiles for research and interpretive purposes were outlined.