Within-couple health behavior trajectories: The role of spousal support and strain

Abstract

Objective: The current study sought to examine the associations between long-term health behavior engagement within couples and to test whether perceiving support or strain from a spouse impacts one's own health behaviors. Method: Data from 5,233 couples in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing were used to examine trajectories of physical activity, smoking, fruit and vegetable consumption, and alcohol use over a period of up to 12 years. Dyadic multilevel models examined patterns of change in each health behavior while allowing male and female partners to covary in intercepts, slopes, and occasion-specific residuals. The influence of perceived spousal support and relationship strain on each behavior was examined, adjusting for age, health, household income, and relationship length. Results: Male and female partners reported similar initial levels of each health behavior and tended to show similar occasion-to-occasion changes as their partner. Higher spousal support predicted increased engagement in physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption in men. Relationship strain appeared to be more impactful to female health behaviors, being associated with alcohol and tobacco use for female but not male partners. Conclusions: Despite romantic partners reporting similar baseline health habits, the long-term trajectories of most health behaviors were not similar for romantic partners. However, spouses did exhibit similar occasion-to-occasion variability. Spousal support and relationship strain differentially impacted men and women's health behavior engagement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).