Marital Satisfaction and Inflammatory Functioning: A Biopsychosocial Pathway to Health - A Meta-Analytic Review

Abstract

Marriage is a dominant relationship among adults and has been shown to impact physical and mental health. The exact pathway to describe its impact remains unclear, but recent advances in the literature focus on a biopsychosocial approach integrating affective, behavioral, and physiological correlates. Combined, these pathways can be best illustrated through a stress buffering model. Using theoretical and methodological conceptualizations of the physiological impact of acute and chronic stress, we review how marital satisfaction, a descriptor of marital functioning, impacts health through altered inflammatory functioning. Using a meta-analytic design, seven published empirical articles spanning over the last 30 years in 2, 349 individuals were reviewed, evaluating the association between marital satisfaction and immunological biomarkers associated with inflammation: C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, interleukin-1 beta, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. Marital satisfaction was not significantly related to inflammation, and effect sizes remained insignificant after accounting for moderators such as year of publication and inflammatory marker. The conclusions are limited by sample size, and exclusion of conflict variables, and the use of a statistical design that limits the interpretation of causal inferences. Future implications of these findings, highlighting a need to focus on moderating factors among marital satisfaction, inflammatory functioning, and health are discussed.