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Biomedical subjects

R B Tower

Publications and source records attributed to R B Tower.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

The influence of spouse cognitive impairment on respondents' depressive symptoms: the moderating role of marital closeness.

An earlier report documented that, in a community-dwelling sample of 317 older married couples, cognitive impairment in a wife was associated with depressive symptoms in her husband (Moritz, Kasl, and Berkman, 1989). No similar effects were found for wives. Here we examine the extent to which marital closeness moderates the impact of a spouse's cognitive impairment, the stability of influences over 3 years, and gender differences in the associations. Analyses of covariance, controlling for respondent risk factors and potential confounders in the spouse, showed that marital closeness moderated the impact of a wife's cognitive impairment, with husbands in close marriages affected more strongly than husbands in less close marriages. These effects held over 3 years. In addition, husbands became less depressed following the death of a severely impaired wife, whereas widowers whose wife had been unimpaired at baseline were more depressed. None of these effects were found for wives.

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PubMed1996

Depressive symptoms across older spouses: longitudinal influences.

Cross-sectional findings that depressive symptoms in one older spouse influence those of the other and that marital closeness increases the influences (R.B. Tower & S.V. Kasl, 1995) were tested longitudinally. Independent interviews in 1982, 1985, and 1988 with spouse-pairs who participated in the Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly showed that changes in depressive symptoms in one older spouse contributed to changes in depressive symptoms in the other. For wives in 1985 and for husbands in 1988, a spouse's baseline depressive symptoms also contributed independent variance to an increase in respondent's score on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. These findings were stronger when a couple was close. These results held when known intrapersonal risk factors and the health status of the spouse were controlled.

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PubMed1996

Gender, marital closeness, and depressive symptoms in elderly couples.

Data from the Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (EPESE) in New Haven include independent interviews with husbands and wives in 317 community-dwelling older couples. Drawing on these data, we (a) describe the prevalence of three aspects of marital closeness: having a confidant, perceived emotional support, and reciprocity between spouses' reports of marital closeness; (b) evaluate their associations with depressive symptoms according to both a respondent's own and his or her spouse's reports; and (c) examine gender similarities and differences in the prevalence and the associations of the closeness variables. Both husbands and wives responded more strongly to their spouse's than to their own. Different dynamics operate, with husbands having fewest depressive symptoms when they have emotionally independent wives, and wives having low levels when they feel important emotionally to their husbands. Dyadic closeness was associated with fewer symptoms in wives and more symptoms in husbands.

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PubMed1995

Depressive symptoms across older spouses and the moderating effect of marital closeness.

Independent interviews with husbands and wives from 317 community-dwelling older couples showed that depressive symptoms in 1 spouse had a significant impact on depressive symptoms in the other spouse, after controlling for potentially confounding respondent sociodemographic and health status variables. Relationship quality moderated the influence, with spouse depressive symptoms contributing more of the variance to a respondent's symptoms when a couple were close than when they were not and closeness to a spouse buffering the potentially depressive effects of a respondent's own frailty and financial distress. Husband's own variables explained more of the variance in his symptoms when the couple were not close than when they were, and closeness to his wife increased a husband's vulnerability to the impact of the wife's health status.

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