Mental illness disclosure from confidants’ perspective within romantic relationships: Validation and extension of the disclosure quality model

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to validate and extend the disclosure quality model (DQM) in the context of mental illness disclosure in romantic relationships. Participants (N = 217) were individuals who received a disclosure of mental illness from their romantic partner within the past year. The results provided validation of the DQM: greater openness (access to information and candor) in mental illness disclosure was related to higher ratings of disclosure quality, which, in turn, contributed to greater post-disclosure relational closeness. Further, our results showed that: (a) openness (particularly access to information) predicted participants’ willingness to communicate with their romantic partner in the future about their mental illness and (b) inferred disclosure reasons contributed to disclosure quality, closeness, or willingness to communicate in different ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Openness
• disclosure
• confidants
• mental illness
• willingness to communicate

Notes

1 We intentionally and carefully selected the three disclosure reasons that are consistent with the literature on relationship. “Seeking help” and “catharsis” were selected because romantic partners are often expected to be the source of comfort and support (Fletcher et al., 1999; Vangelisti & Daly, 1997), letting their partner express their pent-up feelings. We selected “duty to inform” because it is consistent with the relational norm that one should be considerate of their partner and committed to the relationship (Fletcher et al., 1999; Vangelisti & Daly, 1997), which can include sharing important health information that can affect relationships and/or partners. We did not select “close relationships” because it conceptually overlaps with our outcome variable (post-disclosure closeness) and thus, is not a viable option for the current study. We avoided selecting “similarity” because perceived similarity is already a key feature of romantic relationships (Montoya et al., 2008; Sprecher et al., 2013), and thus may be too common, potentially causing ceiling effect. The reasons “educate” and “test the partner’s reaction” were eliminated from the current study because they are not consistent with relationship norms and expectations.