Associations between psychiatric disorders and relationship status as well as the impact of psychiatric symptoms on the quality of romantic relationships have already been demonstrated but the association between psychiatric symptoms and the capacity to maintain romantic relationships has been rarely examined.

To investigate anxiety, depressive symptoms and capacity to love (CTL) in single women (sw) and those in a relationship (rw).

Two hundred healthy adult females (100 sw, 100 rw; mean age 27.8 ± 8.1 yrs and 27.3 ± 8.1 yrs, respectively) completed the PHQ-4 and the CTL-Inventory. Differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms and CTL between both groups were assessed by independent-samples t-tests. Moreover, correlations between CTL, anxiety and depressive symptoms in each group were investigated.

Sw showed a significantly higher level of depressive symptoms (meansw ± SDsw 1.5 9 ± 1.66, meanrw ± SDrw 1.07 ± 1.37, P = 0.016) and a significantly lower CTL (meansw ± SDsw 126.81 ± 12.60; meanrw ± SDrw 137.13 ± 11.26, P ≤ 0.001) than rw but no differences occurred for anxiety symptoms.

Among sw, CTL negatively correlated with depressive (r = −0.37, P < 0.001) and anxiety symptoms (r = −0.44, P < 0.001) whereas in rw, a negative correlation occurred only between CTL and depressive symptoms (r = −0.43, P < 0.001).

Our results suggest that single women, compared to women in a relationship, show a lower CTL and suffer more from depressive symptoms.

Furthermore, a lower CTL is associated with more anxiety and depressive symptoms, thus suggesting that future therapeutic approaches to depression and anxiety should also take into account relationship conflicts and CTL. As a crucial personality trait, CTL might be an important moderator of coping with common psychiatric symptoms.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.