Open AccessEffect of marital status on duration of treatment for mental illness
Author(s) -
Zheng Wu,
Christoph M. Schimmele,
Margaret J. Penning,
Chi Zheng,
Samuel Noh
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
canadian studies in population
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.157
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1927-629X
pISSN - 0380-1489
DOI - 10.25336/p6690z
Subject(s) - causation , marital status , psychology , mental health , duration (music) , gee , stressor , coping (psychology) , perspective (graphical) , mental illness , demography , confounding , clinical psychology , psychiatry , medicine , generalized estimating equation , population , sociology , art , statistics , literature , mathematics , pathology , artificial intelligence , political science , computer science , law
There is a well-established link between marital status and mental health, but previous research has produced mixed results about the reasons for this relationship. Some studies propose that marriage provides protection from stressors and increases personal coping abilities (the causation perspective), whereas other studies argue that marriage markets “weed out” individuals predisposed to illness (the selection perspective). This article addresses the causation-versus-selection debate by examining the effect of marital status on duration of treatment for mental illness. The empirical analysis uses longitudinal data and GEE models to estimate group-level differences in duration of treatment. The results suggest that marriage does not appear to confer a health advantage in terms of duration of treatment. However, the study demonstrates that the never-married experience longer treatment time than the married, divorced, and widowed.
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