Effects of relationship maintenance on psychological distress and dyadic adjustment among couples coping with lung cancer.

Relationship maintenance strategies help to ensure the continuation of valued relationships by keeping them at a certain level of intimacy. This study evaluated how lung cancer patients' and spouses' efforts to maintain their relationships affected their psychological and marital adjustment over time.Psychosocial questionnaires were administered within 1 month of lung cancer treatment initiation (baseline) and 3 and 6 months later to 158 lung...