Changes in marital quality over 6 years and its association with cardiovascular disease risk factors in men: findings from the ALSPAC prospective cohort study

Ian Bennett-Britton*, Alison Teyhan, John Macleod, Naveed Sattar, George Davey Smith, Yoav Ben-Shlomo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)
262 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Marital relationship quality has been suggested to have independent effects on cardiovascular health outcomes. This study investigates the association between changes in marital relationship quality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in men.

METHODS: We used data from The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a prospective birth cohort study (Bristol, UK). Our baseline sample was restricted to married study fathers with baseline relationship and covariate data (n=2496). We restricted final analysis (n=620) to those with complete outcome, exposure and covariate data, who were married and confirmed the study child's father at 6.4 years and 18.8 years after baseline. Relationship quality was measured at baseline and 6.4 years and operationalised as consistently good, improving, deteriorating or consistently poor relationship. We measured CVD risk factors of blood pressure, resting heart rate, body mass index, lipid profile and fasting glucose at 18.8 years after baseline.

RESULTS: Improving relationships were associated with lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (-0.25 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.46 to -0.03) and relative reduction of body mass index (-1.07 kg/m(2), 95% CI -1.73 to -0.42) compared with consistently good relationships, adjusting for confounders. Weaker associations were found between improving relationships and total cholesterol (-0.24 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.48 to 0.00) and diastolic blood pressure (-2.24 mm Hg, 95% CI -4.59 to +0.11). Deteriorating relationships were associated with worsening diastolic blood pressure (+2.74 mm Hg, 95% CI 0.50 to 4.98).

CONCLUSIONS: Improvement and deterioration of longitudinal relationship quality appears associated with respectively positive and negative associations with a range of CVD risk factors.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1094-1100
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Epidemiology and Community Health
Volume71
Issue number11
Early online date16 Oct 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2017

Keywords

  • Journal Article
  • Cohort study
  • cardiovascular risk factors
  • marital quality
  • male health
  • ALSPAC

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