اجتناب از دلبستگی، واکنش های التهابی به تعارضات زناشویی را پیش بینی می کند

Marital stress has been associated with immune dysregulation, including increased production of interleukin-6 (IL-6). Attachment style, one’s expectations about the availability and responsiveness of others in intimate relationships, appears to influence physiological stress reactivity and thus could influence inflammatory responses to marital conflict. Thirty-five couples were invited for two 24-h admissions to a hospital research unit. The first visit included a structured social support interaction, while the second visit comprised the discussion of a marital disagreement. A mixed effect within-subject repeated measure model indicated that attachment avoidance significantly influenced IL-6 production during the conflict visit but not during the social support visit. Individuals with higher attachment avoidance had on average an 11% increase in total IL-6 production during the conflict visit as compared to the social support visit, while individuals with lower attachment avoidance had, on average, a 6% decrease in IL-6 production during the conflict visit as compared to the social support visit. Furthermore, greater attachment avoidance was associated with a higher frequency of negative behaviors and a lower frequency of positive behaviors during the marital interaction, providing a mechanism by which attachment avoidance may influence inflammatory responses to marital conflict. In sum, these results suggest that attachment avoidance modulates marital behavior and stress-induced immune dysregulation.

Marital strain is associated with poor health. Individuals reporting lower marital satisfaction experienced more non-specific physical illness symptoms over a 4-year period than individuals with higher marital satisfaction (Wickrama et al., 1997). Among healthy women, lower marital satisfaction was also associated with a more rapid progression of carotid atherosclerosis (Gallo et al., 2003 and Wang et al., 2007). Furthermore, women who were initially dissatisfied in their marital relationship were more likely to develop metabolic syndrome over an 11-year period (Troxel et al., 2005). Among women hospitalized for an acute coronary event, those who reported moderate to severe marital strain at baseline were 3 times more likely to experience a recurrent coronary event during a 5-year follow-up, compared to women reporting less marital stress (Orth-Gomer et al., 2000). Poor marital quality was also associated with a lower 3-year survival rate among end-stage renal disease patients (Kimmel et al., 2000), and a lower 8-year survival rate among congestive heart failure patients (Rohrbaugh et al., 2006). Collectively, these results from prospective observational studies provide evidence of an association between marital stress and negative health outcomes.