기혼여성의 부모 알코올중독 여부와 배우자의알코올의존성

Adult Children of Alcoholics(ACOA) Status and Partner Alcoholism among Married Women: The Mediating Effect of Self-Differentiation

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of Adult Children of Alcoholics(ACOA) Status on self-differentiation and partner alcoholism among married women. We also investigated whether self-differentiation mediates the association between ACOA status and partner alcoholism. For these study questions, a purposive convenient survey was conducted targeting 146 married women aged over 25 including non-ACOA group(n=104) and the ACOA group(n=42) from eleven self-help groups for families of alcoholics in the Seoul, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chungcheong, and Gyeongsang areas. The major findings of this study are as follows: The ACOA Status of married women who participated in this study was negatively associated with their level of self-differentiation, while positively related with level of alcohol dependence of their partners, after the duration of marriage was controlled. The 3-step hierarchical regression analyses revealed that married women's self-differentiation fully mediated the relationship between ACOA Status and the alcohol dependence of partners. It could thus be inferred that the ACOA Status of married women in their family of origin lowered their level of self-differentiation, which in turn made them select a spouse with higher levels of alcohol dependence.