Couple similarities for cognitive functions and psychological health

Spouse correlations for cognitive functions and psychological state were in vestigated using data on 31 spouse pairs. Subjects were part of the Epidemi ology of Vascular Aging (EVA) study, a longitudinal study on cognitive and vascular aging. Between July 1991 and June 1993, 1389 subjects aged 59 to 7 1 years old were recruited, including 318 couples. Cognitive tests assessed global functioning, verbal fluency, attention, verbal memory, psychomotor speed, and logical intelligence. Depressive symptoms and anxiety levels wer e assessed by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale and S pielberger Scale, respectively. Statistically significant positive spouse c orrelations were found for both psychological scales, spousal similarity be ing higher for depressive symptoms (r = 0.31, P < 0.0001) than anxiety leve l (r = 0.13, P = 0.04). When controlling for age, education level, and psyc hotropic drug use, these associations were not modified. Except for attenti on and psychomotor speed, significant positive spouse correlations, ranging from 0.18 for logical intelligence to 0.36 for global functioning, were ob served for all cognitive performances. When adjusting for age, education le vel, and depressive symptoms, correlation coefficients decreased and spouse correlations remained significant for global assessments and verbal fluenc y. These results suggest that, in the elderly, spouse correlations are high for depressive symptoms and rather moderate for anxiety levels and cogniti ve performances. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.