Lean on me: an exploratory study of the spousal support received by physicians

Abstract

This paper uses interview data from physicians and their spouses to describe the types of spousal support physicians receive when coping with work-related stress and to explore whether they vary by occupational similarity, gender, and parental status. The physicians described receiving different types of spousal support: emotional, informational, and instrumental. Male physicians in this study often reported receiving emotional support from their spouse, consistent with the support gap hypothesis in the literature. An unexpected finding is that from the responses of the physicians’ spouses, the husbands often reported offering emotional support to their physician spouse. Physicians who shared similar occupational and work experiences with their spouse (i.e. married to another physician) reported receiving informational support from their spouse, consistent with the theory of homophily. Finally, the findings also suggested that once physicians have children, their wives often reported providing instrumental support by being primarily responsible for childcare and housework. An interesting finding of this study is the discrepancy between the physicians and their spouses in their perceptions of support.

Keywords:

• spousal support
• social support
• occupational similarity
• physicians
• professionals

Acknowledgments

Support for this research was provided by a Research Grant from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research’s (AHFMR) Health Research Fund and financial and in-kind support from Alberta Health Services (AHS) (former Calgary Health Region). The opinions contained in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of AHFMR or AHS. The authors wish to thank Jane Lemaire for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.