Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:764-768
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
A comparison of nonpatient and bipolar patient-well spouse couples
E Frank, SD Targum, ES Gershon, C Anderson, BD Stewart, Y Davenport, KL Ketchum and DJ Kupfer
The authors compared responses of 16 couples, in which one partner had a
diagnosis of remitted bipolar illness, to a lengthy self-report
questionnaire (KDS-15) designed to assess many aspects of marital
adjustment with those of 16 matched nonpatient couples. The bipolar
patient-well spouse couples had marital adjustments closely resembling
those of the nonpatient couples; three of four global ratings of
satisfaction failed to discriminate between the two groups. Perceptions of
the courtship, first year of marriage, and the degree to which the marriage
had met expectations were also similar for both groups.
