| Summary: | The literature was reviewed in the areas of : stress and anxiety; crisis theory; decision making and behaviour change; coping and control; and previous studies of spouse imprisonment. The purpose of this study was to examine spouse imprisonment as experienced by a sample of women whose partners were serving sentences in Scottish prisons. It was also intended to identify factors which might be implicated in how the individual perceives, and responds to the event of spouse imprisonment. The nature of this study was exploratory, and a number of research questions were posed. These were: whether the nature of problems faced by the partners of imprisoned spouses had changed since the last major British study in the area; what factors influenced the way in which the women responded to the problems; what was the nature of the relationship between anxiety and how the women dealt with problems; and what was the relationship between length and stage of the spouse's sentence and the women's perceptions of their problems. 123 female partners of imprisoned men were interviewed using a semi-structured interview technique. Ten percent of the respondents were interviewed a further three times over the subsequent twelve months. It was concluded that the respondents in this study suffered from a variety of problems in the areas of finance, children, relationships with the wider community, relationships with the male partner, and dealing with the prison and other authority. The frequency and nature of these problems were little different from those reported in much earlier studies. Five factors were identified which accounted for much of the variance in perception of problems and reactions to them. The factors were: General Anxiety, perceived control, locus of coping strategies, spouse history, and attitude to communication with the spouse. General anxiety was found to have an influence on a wide range of problem areas, and reactions to problems. Perceived control had a wide ranging effect also. The influence of each of the other factors seemed to be confined much more to single problem areas.
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