Abstract

FRIZZO, Giana Bitencourt; BRYS, Ivani; LOPES, Rita de Cássia Sobreira  and  PICCININI, Cesar Augusto. Conjugality in context of wife’s depression by the end of the infant’s first year of life. Aletheia [online]. 2010, n.31, pp. 66-81. ISSN 1413-0394.

The present study investigated marital relationship in the context of maternal depression, at the end of the baby’s first year of life. Twenty-two couples, divided into two groups, took part in the study. In one of them the wife presented depression indicators (10), and in the other there were no depression indicators (12), according to Beck’s Depression Inventory. The babies were around 12 months, 8 girls and 14 boys. Mann-Whitney test indicated significant differences between the two groups as far as depression is concerned, but not regarding the  several investigated socio-demographic variables. Qualitative content analysis of the interviews indicated that, compared to the group without depression, the wives with depression indicators reported more difficulties regarding partnership and time for the couple, to the communication and resolution of conflicts and to the global evaluation of the quality of the marital and sexual relationship. Those results corroborate other studies which have highlighted that the presence of depression indicators in the wife can bring difficulties for marital relationship.

Keywords : Marital relationship; Conjugality; Maternal depression; Parenthood.

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