Attributions for negative events in the partners of adults with type I diabetes: Associations with partners' expressed emotion and marital adjustment.
OBJECTIVE
An attribution-emotion model of reactions to illness was tested in a sample of partners of 60 adult patients with type I diabetes.


METHODS
Partners were interviewed using the Camberwell family interview (CFI), from which spontaneous attributions for negative events were extracted and coded. Events were classified into diabetes and non-diabetes events. Partners also completed questionnaire measures of marital adjustment, anxiety and depression.


RESULTS
Compared with low expressed emotion (EE) partners, high-EE partners attributed proportionally more negative diabetes events (e.g. patient characteristics and behaviour) to factors controllable by and personal to the patient. High-EE partners were more anxious than low-EE partners, and made more responsibility attributions (attributions rated as both internal and controllable and personal). Partners with poorer marital adjustment made more responsibility attributions, but only for non-diabetes events.


CONCLUSIONS
Whereas attributions for both diabetes and non-diabetes events were related to partners' EE, attributions for diabetes events were not significantly associated with partners' marital adjustment.
Department of Psychology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. alison.wearden@psy.man.ac.uk
Alison J
AJ
Wearden
Jonathan
J
Ward
Christine
C
Barrowclough
Nicholas
N
Tarrier
Rob
R
Davies
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000523:psychology*; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012917:Social Adjustment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires