Dysfunctional symptom intensity in wives of alcoholics as measured by the Emotional Dependency Questionnaire (EDQ)

Abstract

Introduction: The paper outlines the work on creating the Emotional Dependency Questionnaire, a new research tool designed to measure various characteristics and behaviours resulting from married/partner relation difficulties, particularly in reference to the wives of alcoholics. The project was undertaken due to the numerous conceptual difficulties connected with the so-called co-dependency and diagnostic difficulties in identifying areas of dysfunction of alcoholics' wives. Material and methods: Based on the literature review in the self-model, six variables/research scales have been extracted concerning: Need of Control, Lower Self-Esteem, Anxiety, Anger, Denial and Social Isolation. Psychometric verifications showed high Cronbach's a reliability indicators. In the scope of the construct validity analyses, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that the tested model fits data obtained from the examined Polish sample sufficiently. Results: Comparative studies were carried out on trials N = 157 in the research group of wives of alcoholics and N = 143 in the group of the wives of non-alcoholics. These indicated statistically significant differences in all the researched scales and the group of alcoholics' wives achieved the highest scores in terms of the Lower Self-Esteem. Discussion: The results confirm the reports pointing to adaptation problems and dysfunctional behaviours experienced by the wives of alcoholics. Subsequent studies should cover a wider population of alcoholics' wives, including those who do not participate in therapy. Conclusions: The Emotional Dependency Questionnaire seems to be a useful tool for both individual and group research; it can also be useful in targeting therapy goals for the wives of alcoholics.