Dependence of marital problems on parental family history.

The relation of marital complaints to family history was examined in a sample of 1,624 psychiatric outpatients. Marital complaints were recognized to be an aspect of a broader "depressive spectrum disorder" with distinctive age, gender, alcohol, and neurotic depressive symptom characteristics; however, holding constant the depressive spectrum characteristics, a specific independent relation of marital complaints to family history of parental marital discord was verified. It is concluded that marital problems have two primary etiologies in the psychiatric population, one as part of a broader depressive spectrum disorder and the other a more specific familial behavior patterning.