Satisfacción de pareja y depresión: ¿Es la función reflexiva una variable interviniente?

Within the context of individual and family mental health, the relationship between couple satisfaction and depressive symptomatology has been well documented. A second generation of studies have focused on finding variables that could modulate this relationship; however, the role of the reflective functioning (RF) in the relationship between these 2 variables has not been examined. This study explored the moderating effect of reflective functioning (Reflective Functioning Scale) on the relationship between couple satisfaction (Relationship Assessment Scale) and depressive symptomatology (Beck Depression Inventory I) in a sample of 50 couples with children under 3 years old, purposively selected in 21 municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Chile. A multilevel regression analysis revealed that couple satisfaction has an inverse effect on depressive symptomatology. The analysis also showed a moderating effect of RF on the relationship between these 2 variables: compared to people with low RF, those with high RF display a more intense inverse correlation between couple satisfaction and depression. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.