Dyadic Health Research: Promise, Pitfalls, and Emerging Directions

Although social work conceptual frameworks often highlight people's biopsychosocial contexts--including their interpersonal relationships--most research still uses the individual as the unit of analysis. Dyadic research and dyadic interventions hold promise for assessing and addressing health outcomes not only in individuals but also in pairs. Such work often uses an Actor Partner Interdependence Modeling approach to examine interdependence of predictors and outcomes in both members of a pair (e.g., how a caregiver's depressive symptoms affect a cancer patient's health). Taking a dyadic perspective is in many ways a natural fit for social workers, given the field's interest in people's biopsychosocial contexts, and it can be an effective way to analyze social relationships and interactions. Despite these benefits, researchers and practitioners often face challenges in dyadic recruitment and retention, regulatory approval, and implementation of dyadic interventions.

In the spirit of the conference theme of "Strengthening Social Impact for Collaborative Research," this roundtable will bring together five speakers currently leading dyadic health research projects. Panelists will present relevant methodological information as well as details about community, national, and international work. We will discuss observational and intervention studies, as well as qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods analyses. Presenters will engage in a lively discussion about the promise and pitfalls of dyadic approaches in these contexts, as well as providing advice for investigators interested in using a dyadic lens in the future.

The first speaker will provide an overview of terminology and discuss her qualitative and quantitative dyadic research with cancer patients and informal caregivers. She will also describe results from interviews with stakeholders about implementing dyadic interventions in clinical settings.

The second speaker will discuss conceptualizations of family and family health and their implications for health equity and methodology in dyadic research. She will describe how a family comorbidity and family multimorbidity perspective has influenced her approach to dyadic research.

The third speaker will present a practical application of dyadic data analysis: examining illness uncertainty and quality of life within patient-caregiver dyads. She will discuss the moderation and mediation of dyadic effects and insights gained from this application.

The fourth speaker will leverage her experience conducting dyadic health research about sexuality and intimacy to describe ethical challenges unique to dyadic work, including informed consent, privacy concerns, and the handling of delicate information shared in a dyadic context. Challenges in recruiting dyads and strategies for online data collection will be explored, alongside analytical techniques for interdependent data.

The fifth speaker will focus on dyadic intervention design and adaptations in global health research. She will discuss measurement issues and provide an illustrative example: her clinical trial of a culturally adapted family psychoeducation intervention for adults with schizophrenia and their informal caregivers/recovery partners in Tanzania.

We will close with a discussion of common themes and emerging directions in dyadic research, including questions to invite audience participation. The overarching goal of this roundtable is to advance social work science and practice by examining how dyadic research and intervention can strengthen the social impact of our work.