A new, occasional instrument for measuring marital quality The time required to make a cream cheese and salmon bagel following funnel-web spider bite . . . more succinctly termed "Sweating yet, honey?" Garry Walter
MJA 1999; 171: 674-675 | |||
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There's nothing like a good instrument. In clinical practice and in
research, life is made much easier with reliable and valid
instruments to measure particular constructs.
As a psychiatrist, I encounter disorders for which there is a glut of good instruments -- schizophrenia, depression and anxiety come readily to mind. In other areas, regrettably, there are very few instruments. For example, there is a shortage of reliable and valid instruments for measuring marital quality. This should be rectified because marital quality is a useful construct. It is thought to be associated with physical and psychological health of the partners -- particularly husbands -- and with positive health status for offspring. It has even been suggested that "high marital quality" correlates with "being happily married" and predicts marital duration. Last summer, I chanced upon a potential instrument for measuring marital quality, or, should I say, such an instrument chanced upon me? Sydney summers are notorious for sun, surf, sand, and spiders (funnel-web; marauding, deadly). Having survived more than 40 years on the city's North Shore without even having seen a funnelweb, I suddenly encountered one in such a way that I might not have lived beyond Boxing Day, 1998. For days (read "weeks"), I had been badgered to clean the pool, and I eventually found myself kneeling beside it when, OUCH!! -- my left index finger, dangling tantalisingly in a particularly leaf-rich section of the water, suffered a painful jab. Looking down, I was aghast to see a large, black, writhing, angry arachnid, unmistakably Atrax robustus. Understandably, I was fairly eager to visit the local hospital and rushed inside to find my wife. She insisted that I not go alone, but that I be accompanied by my father who was visiting. At the time, this seemed like sound, compassionate advice -- with pulmonary oedema or excruciating pain ascending my limb, it was conceivable that I might not reach the hospital if I drove alone. Was it also too much to expect that some form of first aid be administered at home? I concede that the recommended medical response to spider bites seems to change with monotonous regularity, and that my wife, a former intensive care unit pharmacist, had recently been more preoccupied with looking after two children than keeping up with trends in emergency medicine. Nevertheless, the offer of a razor blade, tourniquet, cold compress or sling might have reassured me. After all, as a psychiatrist, I could not be trusted to know how to act in this situation. Faced with widowhood, my wife did not opt for sharp implements or bandages. Nor did she rehearse her resuscitation technique. Rather, she insisted on making a bagel for my father, because it was almost lunchtime and she did not have great faith in hospital food. Now, my wife is the sort of person who, at the drop of a hat, quickly whips up a feast for family and friends. But strangely on this occasion, with a solitary bagel to prepare and (if I may be permitted to suggest) something quite important at stake, she was more ponderous. Having asked my father if he wanted butter or "marg" (knowing his preference for the former), she slowly buttered the bagel, ensuring the entire surface was covered. Similarly, she took an eternity to find and spread the cream cheese, return the container to the fridge, locate the salmon, trim the "bad bits" (it all looked fine to me) and carefully arrange the choice slices on the bread. Topping it off with capers and a sprig of dill, she then wrapped the bagel in plastic, placed it in a brown paper bag and gave the top of the bag a twirl. Thankfully, dad declined her offer to peel a mandarin or apple. Thus, equipped with sustenance for my father and an afterglow as a result of my two-year-old daughter Sophie's wish to hold my hand through the ordeal, things were bound to be OK. And they were. Indeed, I remain convinced that a burly hospital orderly standing beside my bed in "obs ward", sporting a tattoo of a large menacing spider on his forearm, prevented me (through the behavioural technique of "exposure") from developing spider phobia. Now, about that instrument for measuring marital quality ("Time taken for your wife to make a salmon and cream cheese bagel after you have been bitten by a funnelweb spider and before she dispatches you to hospital"). I am acutely aware that it took seven minutes for Michelle to make the bagel before sending me on my way, but I'm not sure what that means. Normal values have not yet been established, as there are obvious problems with developing this instrument. For example, recruiting volunteers to be bitten by a funnel-web spider seems to be a major snag. In addition, how many potential suckers would put up a hand for "test-retest" reliability studies? Finally, there are already teething problems with validity. All I can say is, while seven minutes felt like a long time, so far, my marriage seems fine. Garry Walter ©MJA 1999
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