Implications of we-talk for relationships and health among patients with type 1 diabetes and their spouses

Abstract

We-talk (first-person plural pronoun usage) is frequently used to represent the degree to which a person views an illness as shared within a couple. There is evidence that we-talk is related to good relationship and health. However, research has failed to examine the implications of we-talk for spouses and the interpersonal mechanisms that underlie relational and health benefits. To address these limitations, we investigated the association of we-talk to relationship and health among 199 couples in which one person had type 1 diabetes. We-talk was assessed in the context of a brief coping interview with patients and spouses separately. Patients reported their perceptions of their spouse’s behavior over the past month. Actor–partner interdependence, regression, and bootstrap models showed that patient we-talk was unrelated to patient and spouse well-being, but greater spouse we-talk was associated with higher patient relationship satisfaction, higher patient self-efficacy, and better patient self-care behavior. For spouses, greater spouse we-talk also was associated with higher relationship satisfaction, lower stress, and fewer depressive symptoms. Mediational analyses showed that patients’ perceptions of spouses’ greater emotional support and fewer critical behaviors partially accounted for these associations. Spouse we-talk may be more important than patient we-talk because it signifies that spouses are involved in helping with diabetes management, namely by providing emotional support and refraining from criticizing the patient.