Committed Romantic Relationship Profiles of Individuals with Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorder treatment is less effective when individuals receiving treatment report committed romantic relationship distress. As such, many have argued that the need to adapt or develop couples based interventions for those with anxiety disorders. In order to effectively adapt these interventions, it is first necessary to create a method to more accurately identify those with anxiety disorders who would benefit from couples based interventions, and determine if those with anxiety disorders who would benefit from these interventions have relationship patterns that are different from those without anxiety disorders. One way to address both of these needs is by examining positive and negative components of committed romantic relationships and using these components to construct committed romantic relationship profiles. Using data from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, this study tested 1) if a two component measure of committed romantic relationship quality provides better fit than a one dimensional measure; 2) if those with anxiety disorders have committed romantic relationship profiles similar to those proposed by Fincham and Beach (2010); 3) if those with anxiety disorders are more likely to have negative profiles committed romantic relationship profile; and 4) if couples with anxiety disorders have a greater degree of negativity and a lesser degree of positivity in their relationships. Results demonstrate the measuring committed romantic relationship quality with positive and negative components provided a more valid measure than one dimensional measures, that the committed romantic relationship profiles of those with anxiety disorders are distinct from those proposed by Fincham and Beach, and that more negativity is reported in the committed romantic relationship of those with anxiety disorders when compared to those without.