Seung-Hyun Yoo1, Hyuk-Ju Kwon1, Sun-Hee Kim1, Jung-Ah Lee1, Sung Sunwoo1, Young-Sik Kim1, Byung-Su Kim2, Han-Jin Oh3, Chul-Min Kim4, Hee-Jeong Choi5, Hee-Jin Hwang6, Sun-Wha Ok7

1Department of Family Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea 2Department of Psychiatry, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea 3Department of Family Medicine, Vievis Namuh Hospital, Seoul, Korea 4Department of Family Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea 5Department of Family Medicine, Eulji University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea 6Department of Family Medicine, Catholic Kwandong University International St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic Kwandong University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea 7Department of Child Development and Family Studies, Institute of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea


Background: Depression is known to affect family function and communication. However, the distress experienced by those who have spouse with depression has not been properly assessed to date. This study attempted to examine the effect of depression on family function and communication as reported by the spouses of the depressed patients.
Methods: The participants of this study were 445 couples who visited 28 family doctors from April 2009 to June 2011. The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale III (FACES-III) was used to evaluate the family function, and the family communication scale in FACES-IV was used to evaluate communication among family members. A score of more than 21 points on the CES-D scale was used to indicate depression. The relationships between family type, family communication, and the depression of one’s spouse were analyzed using the chi-square test and logistic regression.
Results: The odds ratios, indicating how the family is heading towards an extreme level, were statistically significant in all male and female respondents (male: odds ratio [OR] 3.08, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.73-5.48; female: OR 2.09, 95% CI 1.02-4.27). On the other hand, only female respondents with depressed spouses reported their family communication not to be good (male: OR 1.65, 95% CI 0.88-3.07; female: OR 2.48, 95% CI, 1.25-4.93).
Conclusions: This study revealed people perceive their family function and communication not good when they have spouses with depression. There was no gender difference in the evaluation of their family function, but the perception on their family communication were different by gender.
Korean J Health Promot 2016;16(1):11-19

Keywords: Depression, Spouses, Family functioning, Commuincation