TitleDaily Spousal Responsiveness Predicts Longer-Term Trajectories of Patients' Physical Function.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2017
AuthorsWilson, SJ, Martire, LM, Sliwinski, MJ
JournalPsychol Sci
Volume28
Issue6
Pagination786-797
Date Published2017 Jun
ISSN1467-9280
KeywordsAged, Chronic Pain, Empathy, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Middle Aged, Osteoarthritis, Knee, Spouses
Abstract

<p>Everyday interpersonal experiences may underlie the well-established link between close relationships and physical health, but multiple-timescale designs necessary for strong conclusions about temporal sequence are rarely used. The current study of 145 patients with knee osteoarthritis and their spouses focused on a novel pattern in everyday interactions, daily spousal responsiveness-the degree to which spouses' responses are calibrated to changes in patients' everyday verbal expression of pain. Using couple-level slopes, multilevel latent-variable growth models tested associations between three types of daily spousal responsiveness (empathic, solicitous, and punishing responsiveness), as measured during a 3-week experience-sampling study, and change in patients' physical function across 18 months. As predicted, patients whose spouses were more empathically responsive to their pain expression showed better physical function over time compared with those whose spouses were less empathically responsive. This study points to daily responsiveness, a theoretically rooted operationalization of spousal sensitivity, as important for long-term changes in patients' objective physical function.</p>

DOI10.1177/0956797617697444
Alternate JournalPsychol Sci
PubMed ID28459650
PubMed Central IDPMC5467745
Grant ListK02 AG039412 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 AG026010 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
T32 DE014320 / DE / NIDCR NIH HHS / United States