پیش بینی رضایت زناشویی براساس تابآوری و خودکارآمدی در دوران همه گیری ویروس کرونا

Predicting Marital Satisfaction based on Rresilience and Self-Efficacy during the Coronavirus Panademic

Chomaghloo H*.,[1] Mardoukhy M.S.[2]

Abstract

Introduction: The purpose of this research was to predict marital satisfaction based on resilience and self-efficacy variables during the corona virus epidemic.

Research Method: The current research design was of descriptive-correlation type and in terms of purpose, it was applied research. The statistical population of this research included all married students who were studying in the second semester of the academic year 1400-1399 at Payam Noor University, Karaj branch, and due to the unknown size of the statistical population, 123 people were selected as the sample of the study by sampling in were selected and answered the marital satisfaction questionnaires of Hodson (1992), Connor and Davidson's resilience (2003) and Scherer's self-efficacy (1982). In order to analyze the obtained data, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation and multivariate regression) were used. All stages of statistical analysis were done using spss software version 24.

Results: The findings showed that 29% of the variance of marital satisfaction was predicted by resilience components and 34% of the variance of marital satisfaction was predicted by self-efficacy components. Also, 42% of the variance of marital satisfaction was explained by resilience and self-efficacy variables.

Conclusion: The research findings indicated that resilience and self-efficacy variables can predict the marital satisfaction of couples during the corona virus epidemic.

Key words: corona, marital satisfaction, resilience, self-efficacy

Received:  16/November/2022                 Accepted: 8/March/ 2023

Introduction:

 Since December 2019, when the Covid-19 disease was reported and the death rate due to it was confirmed, people's living conditions have changed in all countries. Staying at home was a new and unpredictable event that most people had not experienced in their lifetime and were not aware of all its dimensions and consequences. In such a situation, the marital and sexual relations of the spouses and consequently the marital satisfaction of the couples were also affected (1). Marital satisfaction, as an indicator of the quality of relationships between couples, is achieved only when there is compatibility between the current status of a person in his marital relationship and his expected status (2). In other words, marital compatibility is a situation in which husband and wife feel happy and satisfied with each other most of the time (3).

Considering the situation of the pandemic of the Covid-19 disease, which has affected almost all the important economic, political, social and even military aspects of all the countries of the world, as a result, the psychological effects of this disease on the health and mental health of people at different levels of society are important. It has a lot. According to the pathogenic nature of this virus, the speed of its spread and also the percentage of deaths caused by it, this disease may affect the health status of the mental health of people at different levels of society, from infected patients, health care workers, families, children, students, It puts psychological patients and even the personnel of different occupations at risk in a different way (4).

 Therefore, with the spread of corona disease among the people of the society, feelings of fear, worry, vulnerability and disturbed thoughts arise and disrupt daily functioning, social activities and mental peace. Also, with the increase of these concerns, problems arise in married life, and as a result, it causes a decrease in marital satisfaction among couples (5).

One of the variables related to life satisfaction and subsequently marital satisfaction is resilience. Resilience is also formed and nurtured in the heart of the family. Parents' adaptive parenting styles and childhood experiences have constructive effects on developing resilience skills. While some researchers consider resilience as a consequence of a construct and consider it the absence of psychological problems in response to traumatic events, others focus more on the process of resilience, which shows rapid adaptation to stressful events. The third point of view relates resilience to the personality traits of a person that reacts well to events and misfortunes (6).

 It seems that teaching resilience skills to couples increases marital satisfaction and reduces divorce rates (7) and marital satisfaction in couples has a direct relationship with resilience (8). In addition, self-efficacy is another variable related to marital satisfaction. By adjusting the effects of stressors in the work environment on people, self-efficacy increases happiness and indirectly increases the level of satisfaction with people's lives. Self-efficacy theory is rooted in Bandura's social cognitive theory. Social cognitive theory provides a comprehensive framework for understanding social behavior and explaining human performance (9).

According to Bandura (10), self-efficacy refers to a person's understanding of the ability to perform a specific task or tasks effectively and competently. Research shows that there is a significant relationship between problem-solving skills, marital satisfaction, and self-efficacy in married women (11), as well as perseverance in doing tasks, high performance level and in accordance with abilities, searching for new successes, problem-solving ability, not being afraid of failure. Choosing higher goals, commitment and persistence in achieving them and self-mastery when behind. Sitting is necessary; it is one of the characteristics of automatic people (12). According to Barabanelli and Caprara (13), low self-efficacy increases the feeling of loneliness and emotional disturbance in couples, and in the research of Melani et al., (14) it was found that there is a significant relationship between self-efficacy and marital satisfaction.

In the research conducted, it can be pointed out that most studies emphasize that there is a direct and positive relationship between marital satisfaction and resilience and self-efficacy. However, the lack of studies on the effect of these variables on marital satisfaction in the Corona era raises the question whether, despite the multifaceted economic, psychological, and social tensions of the Corona era, variables such as resilience and self-efficacy still have a significant impact on the marital satisfaction of couples. Since the most important factors affecting the marital satisfaction of people during the corona virus epidemic are the couple's resilience and self-efficacy, and previous studies have not been carried out in such conditions, so the purpose of the present study is to study the relationship between these variables during the covid-19 disease among college students. Psychology at Payamnoor Karaj University.

Research Method:

The current research is of descriptive-correlation type and in terms of purpose, it is of applied research type. To conduct the present research, field method was used and library sources were used to collect the theoretical foundations of the research. The statistical population of this research includes all married students of Payam Noor University, Karaj branch in Alborz province, who were studying in the second semester of the academic year 2014-2015. Due to the unknown size of the statistical population among them, 123 people were selected using available sampling method. The mentioned students answered three questionnaires: Hudson's Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire, Connor and Davidson's Resilience and General Self-Efficacy Beliefs.

Hudson's Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire (1992): Hudson's Marital Satisfaction Index consists of 25 questions with 7 options, which were developed to measure the amount, intensity or range of the husband's or wife's problems in the marital relationship. This scale has two cut scores: scores less than 35 indicate the absence of important clinical problems, and scores greater than 35 indicate the presence of significant clinical problems; The second cut-off score is 70, and higher scores indicate that clients have more problems (15).

Marital satisfaction index scoring is first calculated by inverting and adding some scores. These scores are then added to the scores of the remaining questions. This number is multiplied by 100 and divided by 6 times the number of answered questions (150). The range of the obtained number is between 0-100, and its higher scores indicate the severity and extent of the problems (16), the reliability of this index was reported through Cronbach's alpha in several studies at its lowest level of 0.86 and at its highest level of 0.96. (16) which is considered good reliability. Also, in this test and the Enrich test, the correlation was equal to -0.87. The reason for the negative correlation coefficient is that in Hodson's marital satisfaction index, high scores are a sign of low marital satisfaction, and in Enrich, high scores indicate high marital satisfaction. This correlation is a valid sign of Hodson's questionnaire (17).

Connor and Davidson's Resilience Questionnaire: Connor and Davidson's (2003) resilience scale includes 25 items and is scored on a Likert scale between zero (completely false) and five (completely true) with a range of 125-25. Connor and Davidson (CD-RIS) prepared this questionnaire by reviewing research sources from 1991-1979 in the field of resilience, which includes five subscales: perception of personal competence, trust in personal instincts, positive acceptance of change, control, and spiritual influences. The psychometric properties of this scale have been investigated in six groups of primary care patients, psychiatric outpatients, patients with generalized anxiety disorder and two groups of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. The creators of this scale believe that this questionnaire can well identify resilient people from non-resilient ones in clinical and non-clinical groups. The validity of this first scale showed the correlation of each score with the total score except item 3, the coefficients between 0.41 and 0.64. Cronbach's alpha method was used to determine the reliability of Connor and Davidson's resilience scale and a reliability coefficient of 0.84 was obtained (18).

Scherer Self-Efficacy Beliefs Questionnaire (SES): This scale was created by Scherer, Maddox, Mercandant, Prenticdon, Jacobs and Rogers (1982) and its original version included 36 questions, among which 17 questions measure general self-efficacy in this research. Was used this questionnaire has three subscales, which are: the desire to initiate behavior, the desire to expand efforts to complete the task, and resistance in facing obstacles. In this questionnaire, each item is given 1 to 5 points. In this way, the highest score in this scale is 85 and the lowest score is 17, and the higher a person scores in this questionnaire, the higher his self-efficacy is, and the lower scores indicate the low level of self-efficacy. Cronbach's alpha rate of this questionnaire is 86. In the study of Sherer et al. (19). In this study, the reliability of this tool was calculated by Cronbach's alpha method and its value was equal to 0.87.

Due to the special conditions caused by the corona virus crisis and the lack of direct access to students and the unknown size of the statistical population, 123 people from the research population were selected as the sample of the study using available sampling method. Due to the virtual nature of the classes, from March 1st to May 31st, the link of Hodson's (1992), Connor and Davidson's resilience (2003) and Scherer et al.'s (1982) self-efficacy beliefs questionnaires in Payam Noor Karaj University's WhatsApp and Telegram social network groups. It was available to the statistical population and married students were asked to complete the questionnaires online. Data collection lasted from March 2013 to July 1400. The conditions for participation in this research were: marriage, absence of mental crisis and drug use, and finally desire to study psychology at Payam Noor University, Alborz province, Karaj branch.

In this research, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. In the descriptive statistics section, the mean and standard deviation table and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used, and in the inferential statistics section, multivariate regression analysis was used to check the research hypotheses. All statistical analysis using SPSS software.

Findings:

In order to analyze the data, first the descriptive statistics related to the education level and the age of the subjects were determined, and then the inferential statistics of the effect of the two variables of resilience and self-efficacy on the satisfaction of Ranashui were examined and the following research hypotheses were examined.

Table 1: Frequency distribution and percentage of age and education level of research subjects

In Table No. 1, it can be seen that among the people participating in the study (123 people), the highest frequency and percentage according to the level of education of the subjects was master's degree and the lowest frequency and percentage was assigned to bachelor's degree. Also, 24 of them (equivalent to 19.5%) are in the age range of 31 to 36 years with the lowest frequency, and 56 of them (equivalent to 6.45%) are in the age range of 37 to 42 years with the highest frequency.

Table 2: Mean and standard deviation of resilience, self-efficacy and marital satisfaction scores

Table No. 2 shows the mean and standard deviation of resilience in variables. The results show that the mean resilience scores were 76.72 and the average of the resilience components were as follows: perception of individual competence 24.24, trust in individual instincts to tolerate negative emotions 21.21, positive acceptance of change and secure relationships 15.91, control 75. 9.00 and spiritual effects is 5.69. The results related to self-efficacy show that the average score of self-efficacy in the subjects is 50.67 and its components include the desire to initiate behavior 20.51, the desire to expand efforts to complete the task 15.76 and resistance to face obstacles 14.39. Also, the average and standard deviation of marital satisfaction scores in the research subjects were reported (72.94 and 14.15), respectively.

In the examination of correlation and regression coefficients for the significance and prediction of marital satisfaction based on resilience and self-efficacy, the following results were obtained.

Table 3: Correlation and regression coefficients for predicting marital satisfaction based on resilience and self-efficacy

Table 3 shows that there is a significant relationship between self-efficacy (r=0.55) and resilience (r=0.50) with marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic (p 0.05). It should also be said that there is a significant positive correlation between self-efficacy and resilience with marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic. The positivity of the relationship means that with the increase in self-efficacy and resilience of married students, their marital satisfaction increases during the corona virus epidemic and vice versa. Therefore, it can be stated that resilience and self-efficacy variables are able to predict marital satisfaction.

According to the beta weight (regression coefficients), the equation of the effect of resilience and self-efficacy on marital satisfaction is as follows:

Marital satisfaction = 13.8 + resilience (0.36) + self-efficacy (0.43)

Table 4: Correlation between resilience components and marital satisfaction

As Table 4 shows, there is a difference between resilience components, including the perception of individual competence (r=0.42), trust in individual instincts (r=0.41), positive acceptance of change and secure relationships (r=0.37), control ( (r=0.50) and spiritual influences (r=0.19) have a significant relationship with marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic (p<0.05). Because the significance level obtained is less than five percent. But there is no significant relationship between the control component (r=0.13) and marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic (p>0.05).

Also, there is a significant positive correlation between resilience components and marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic. The positivity of the relationship means that as the resilience of married students increases, their marital satisfaction increases during the corona virus epidemic, and vice versa.

Table 5: Regression coefficients for predicting marital satisfaction based on resilience components

According to the information in Table 5, the significance level of the variables of perception of individual competence, trust in individual instincts and positive acceptance of change is less than 0.05 and they are significant. In other words, it can be said that the components of resilience, including the perception of individual competence, trust in individual instincts, and positive acceptance of change can predict marital satisfaction. According to the beta weight (regression coefficients), the equation of the effect of resilience components on marital satisfaction is as follows:

Marital satisfaction = 28.54 + perception of individual competence (0.27) + trust in individual instincts (0.21) + positive acceptance of change (0.25).

Table 6: Correlation between self-efficacy components and marital satisfaction

Table 6 shows the relationship between the self-efficacy components including the desire to initiate behavior (r=0.47), the desire to expand the effort to complete the task (r=0.22) and resistance in facing obstacles (r=0.56) with There is a significant relationship between marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic (p<0.05). Because the significance level obtained is less than five percent.

It should also be said that there is a significant positive correlation between self-efficacy components and marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic. The positivity of the relationship means that with the increase in the self-efficacy of married students, their marital satisfaction increases during the corona virus epidemic, and vice versa.

Discussion and conclusion:

The findings showed that 29% of the variance of marital satisfaction was predicted by resilience components and 34% of the variance of marital satisfaction was predicted by self-efficacy components. Also, 42% of the variance of marital satisfaction was explained by resilience and self-efficacy variables. In other words, it can be said that resilience and self-efficacy variables are able to predict marital satisfaction. According to the obtained results, the main hypothesis of the research is confirmed as resilience and self-efficacy predict marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic.

Examining the multiple correlation between resilience variables showed that the significance level of the variables of perception of individual competence, trust in individual instincts and positive acceptance of change is less than 0.05 and significant and can predict marital satisfaction. According to the obtained results, the first sub-hypothesis of the research is confirmed as resilience predicts marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic. These results are in line with the findings of the studies of Farhang et al. (20), Vali Sayani (21), as well as the studies of Huang et al.

The multiple correlation between self-efficacy variables indicated that self-efficacy components including desire to initiate behavior and resistance in facing obstacles are able to predict marital satisfaction. According to the obtained results, the second sub-hypothesis of the research is confirmed as self-efficacy predicts marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic. The results of this finding are consistent with the studies of Rajaei et al. (24), Ghafari (25) and Barabanli et al. (26).

In explaining the findings of the research, it can be said that during the corona virus epidemic, in addition to changes in people's lifestyles and interactions with the people around them, people feel fear, worry, vulnerability, and disturbed thoughts, and their daily functioning, social activities and It disturbs the peace of mind. Couples need to use resources such as resilience against negative but controllable stressful life events to protect their marital satisfaction well. In this situation, it is necessary for family members, especially couples, to strengthen their resilience and self-efficacy. Parents' adaptive parenting styles and childhood experiences have constructive effects on cultivating individual's resilience skills. While some researchers consider resilience as a constructive consequence and consider it the absence of psychological problems in response to traumatic events, others focus more on the process of resilience, which shows rapid adaptation to stressful events. People with high resilience in stressful and traumatic situations feel that they can find a suitable way to solve their problems and show a learning-coping response in difficult situations, while people with low resilience in these situations They show a blame-victim reaction. In addition, high self-efficacy in couples increases marital satisfaction. People with high self-efficacy have more control over things and experience less uncertainty.

It can also be said that resilience plays a key role as an important prerequisite and prerequisite in establishing effective communication with one's spouse and marital satisfaction. Increasing resilience causes marital satisfaction, reducing stress and depression and feeling satisfied with oneself. Resilience means the ability to solve problems in crises and restore oneself. This ability can help a person triumphantly overcome unfortunate life events such as the harsh conditions of the Corona virus epidemic and improve his social, academic and professional skills despite being exposed to extreme tensions.

In addition, the self-efficacy factor plays an effective role in people's ability to adapt to various stressful situations and difficult and challenging tasks, and it leads to the management of those situations and self-confidence, satisfaction with life, feeling good and quality of life. Self-efficacy is one of the key variables in Bandura's social cognitive theory and it consists of people's beliefs about their abilities in performing a task and mobilizing motivations, cognitive resources and exerting control over a given event. Therefore, it seems that one of the causes of marital conflicts is the couple's inability and weak skills in controlling disputes and resolving them, and interventions that are logically based on communication skills deficiencies will increase marital satisfaction to a large extent. On the other hand, the decrease in self-efficacy causes a decrease in motivation and disappointment in people, and they are frustrated in the face of issues and problems and feel less control over their behavior and life events, which causes a decrease in marital satisfaction. Therefore, it can be said that increasing self-efficacy and resilience in couples increases marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic.

While the present study measured the effectiveness of resilience and self-efficacy in a situation where economic, political and social problems in Iranian society were added to the Corona crisis, it was thought that the above variables could not predict marital satisfaction like in other situations. But in practice, the result of the present study showed that people with high resilience and self-efficacy are able to maintain their capabilities in crisis situations. Therefore, teaching resilience and self-efficacy skills can protect people from life's problems in a meaningful way, and in this study, it specifically predicted marital satisfaction. Considering the role of resilience and self-efficacy in predicting marital satisfaction during the corona virus epidemic, it is suggested that before marriage, at the time of taking blood from the couple, training courses should be held to develop and strengthen resilience and self-efficacy. Educational brochures should be provided to couples in order to grow and strengthen their knowledge about the causes of marital dissatisfaction during the corona virus epidemic. Based on the results of the present study, it is suggested that in order to prevent emotional damage of couples, in order to help young people to have productive marriages, couples should go to pre-marriage, post-marriage, and during-marriage counseling to resolve conflicts. At the same time, the media and other influential organizations should provide necessary training to families about psychological damage during the corona virus epidemic and help them live a healthy life away from disputes and tension.

Research limitations:

The lack of similar research inside and even abroad is the most important limitation of this research, which does not allow comparing the results of this research with the results of similar research.

The large number of questions in the questionnaire and especially its type (Likert scale) reduced the subjects' willingness to answer, which was a factor for the subjects' lack of cooperation. One of the limitations of the research is considered.

The difficulty of reaching the respondents and getting their consent to complete the questionnaires was considered as one of the limitations of this research.

Acknowledgments:

 Many thanks to all the participants who helped us in conducting this research.

 Conflict of interest of the authors:

 The article has no conflict of interest.

Ethical considerations:

 In this research, the ethical standards include: the principle of respect and confidentiality, preventing the disclosure of the obtained information of the subjects with their real names, the discretion and freedom of the subjects to participate or leave the training, obtaining written consent from the subjects.

 Contribution of the authors:

 All authors contributed to the writing, submission and follow-up of this article.

[1] - (Corresponding Author) Master of Psychology, Payam Noor Karaj University, Karaj, Iran, marzeyeamisorthi@yahoo.com

[2] - Professor of Psychology, Payam Noor Karaj University, Karaj, Iran

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