Department of Community Health Sciences and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 4N1. bulloch@ucalgary.ca
Marital status is important to the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders. In particular, the high prevalence of major depression in individuals with separated, divorced, or widowed status has been well documented. However, the literature is divided as to whether marital disruption results in major depression and/or vise versa. We examined whether major depression influences changes of marital status, and, conversely, whether marital status influences the incidence of this disorder.
We employed data from the longitudinal Canadian National Population Health Survey (1994-2004), and proportional hazards models with time-varying covariates.
Major depression had no effect on the proportion of individuals who changed from single to common-law, single to married, or common-law to married status. In contrast, exposure to depression doubled the proportion of transitions from common-law or married to separated or divorced status (HR=2.0; 95% CI 1.4-2.9 P