Marital quality and general life adjustment in relation to treatment outcome in agoraphobia

Twenty-five female agoraphobics were treated by means of non-drug assisted group exposure in vivo on an outpatient basis and were, together with their marriage partners, followed up for one year. Improvement in agoraphobic complaints was not related to initial marital or sexual adjustment. However, good initial general life (i.e. work and social) adjustment was predictive of good outcome in the long run. Reduction in patients' agoraphobic complaints was associated with relatively stable marital and sexual adjustment and improved general life adjustment. As a group, the marital partners of the patients who had improved showed no evidence of change in terms of marital, sexual or general life adjustment. Mean marital, sexual and general life adjustment scores of both the patients and their partners were more comparable to those of maritally-non-distressed spouses and couples from the general population than to those of maritally-distressed spouses or unselected female psychiatric outpatients and their marital partners.