Table 1.

Baseline characteristics and chronic disease status at Wave 1 and Wave 3 by gender (3420 couples).

	Husbands	Wives	p (for Difference)	Kappa	p (for Kappa)
	n = 3420	n = 3420
	%	%
Sociodemographic characteristics at baseline
Age, year [Mean (SD)]	57.54 (8.54)	55.61 (8.01)	<0.001	0.12	<0.001
Education level, Upper secondary	17.31	8.89	<0.001	0.28	<0.001
Retired, yes	16.20	24.50	<0.001	0.39	<0.001
Household income, thousand [Mean (SD)]	33.57 (66.99)		-	-	-
Lifestyles at baseline
Smoking, yes	60.29	5.67	<0.001	0.01	0.047
Drinking, yes	59.94	11.81	<0.001	0.06	<0.001
Social participation, yes	48.07	46.14	0.05	0.36	<0.001
Exercise, yes	77.08	73.98	<0.001	0.19	<0.001
Underweight (BMI < 18.5 kg/m2), yes	5.88	5.56	<0.001	0.05	<0.001
(Pre-)obesity (BMI ≥ 24 kg/m2), yes	32.84	44.24	<0.001	0.05	<0.001
Chronic disease status 2
Wave 1 (baseline, 2010–2011), yes	22.92	26.29	0.001	-	-
Wave 3 (2014–2015), yes	38.10	42.49	<0.001	-	-
Chronic disease development (Wave 1 to 3) 3
Changed chronic disease condition, yes	22.95	24.71	0.002 1	-	-

¹p value of chi-square test of two independent groups. ² Chronic disease status: ‘yes’ refers to the presence of at least. one of seven chronic diseases: high blood pressure, diabetes or high blood sugar, cancer, chronic lung diseases, heart disease, stroke, and dyslipidemia. ³ Chronic disease development: Among those who had a negative chronic disease status at baseline (2636 husbands, 2521wives). ‘yes’ indicates that the chronic disease status had changed from disease-free to the presence of at least one of nine chronic diseases over 4 years (from Wave 1 to Wave 3). Abbreviations: SD, Standard Deviation.