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Marriage and Mental Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

John Birtchnell  and
John Kennard
John Birtchnell
Affiliation:
MRC Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 4PQ
John Kennard
Affiliation:
MRC Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 4PQ
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Summary

Two female psychiatric patient samples were examined—240 women, aged 20 or over, from North East Scotland; and 44, aged 40 to 49, from Chichester, West Sussex. There was also a Chichester community sample of 230 women of similar age-range.

The N.E. Scotland psychiatric patients with poor marriages broke down significantly earlier, and the delay between marriage and first breakdown was significantly shorter. This group also tended to have a neurotic rather than an endogenous type of depression.

The poor marriages of the Chichester psychiatric patients were, in the main, similar to those of the Chichester non-patients, but the patients demonstrated significantly more disturbance of sexual relationships, and their in-laws were significantly more disapproving.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 142 , Issue 2 , February 1983 , pp. 193 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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