ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Shahhosseini Tazik   S. (*1)
Taheri   N. (1)
Sayyadi   M. (1)






(*1) Educational Psychology and Consultation Department, Psychology & Educational Faculty Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
(1) Educational Psychology and Consultation Department, Physical Education & Sport Sciences Faculty, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
(1) Educational Psychology and Consultation Department, Physical Education & Sport Sciences Faculty, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Kavian University, Kosar 13, kosar Boulevard, Vakil Abad Boulevard, Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi, Iran.
Phone: +98 (51) 38816393
Fax: +98 (51) 38827895
s.shahhosseini.psy@gmail.com

Article History

Received:  June  7, 2018
Accepted:  April 14, 2019
ePublished:  July 6, 2019

BRIEF TEXT


Infertility is one of the main problems in a marriage, which can have various psychological consequences, including the inability to establish quality relationship between the couples and the instability of their marital commitment.

... [1-7]. Generally, couples facing infertility sometimes are more involved in social and occupational activities as well as family withdrawal and in some cases extramarital relations can be observed [8, 9]. ... [10]. Johnson et al. divide marital commitment into three types of personal, moral and structural commitment [11]. Personal commitment represents the individual's interest and desire to continue marital relationship, moral commitment reflects individual's moral loyalty to marriage and structural commitment also points to the barriers and limitations of leaving marriage or feeling compelled to continue that relationship or fear the consequences of divorce. … [13-24].

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between marital commitment and relationship quality of fertile couples compared with infertile couples.

This research was a descriptive cohort study.

This study was conducted between 2015 and 2016 on 170 fertile (N=89) and infertile (N=81) men and women referred to the Sarem Hospital.

200 subjects (96 infertile subjects and 104 fertile subjects) were selected as the sample by available sampling method, but due to incomplete and incorrect answers to the questionnaires, the final sample size was reduced to 170 cases (81 infertile and 89 fertile). The inclusion criteria included being married for more than two years and the age of 18-50 years.

The research tools included marital commitment questionnaire and couples' relationship quality questionnaire. Marital commitment questionnaire: Due to the Cronbach's alpha level obtained in all domains of marital commitment (commitment to spouse 0.88, commitment to marriage 0.78, sense of commitment 0.79, and marriage commitment 0.90), this scale has a relatively high reliability coefficient. … [25-27]. Couples' relationship quality questionnaire: The validity coefficient of the questionnaire is reported 0.8. The questionnaires were distributed among the individuals after obtaining permission from the research department of Sarem Hospital. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS 19 software. Pearson correlation test was used to examine the correlation between research variables in infertile and infertile couples and Student's t-test was used to compare research variables between two groups of fertile and infertile.

In general, there was a significant difference between fertile and infertile couples (P <0.05) in relationship quality as well as most of its subscales, including paying attention to yourself, problem solving and communication styles (p <0.05) and fertile couples showed higher scores. No statistical difference was found in marital commitment scale (p> 0.05) and only in personal commitment subscale fertile couples achieved higher scores than infertile couples (p = 0.0001; Table 1). In fertile couples, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and couples' relationship quality (r = 0.27, p <0.05). In general, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and its subscales and also all couples' relationship quality subscales. On the other hand, there was a positive and significant correlation between the quality of relationship with all its four subscales and also moral commitment and structural commitment subscales in marital commitment (p <0.05), however it showed no significant correlation with personal commitment subscale (p> 0.05; Table 2). In infertile couples, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and couples' relationship quality (r <0.18, p <0.05). In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between marital commitment and its subscales and with all couples' relationship quality subscales. On the other hand, there was a positive and significant correlation between the les' relationship quality with all its four subscales and also moral commitment and structural commitment subscales (p <0.05), but it showed no significant correlation with personal commitment subscale (p> 0.05; Table 3).

The findings of this study are in line with the results of some other relevant studies [3, 6, 16, 18]. In general, training how to make qualified communication, including having a good relationship with spouse, mutual understanding, sharing feelings and thoughts, using appropriate verbal tone, careful listening, using appropriate verbal and behavioral responses to the spouse and using a sense of gratitude towards a spouse will lead to emotional closeness and intimacy, which will reduce the problems associated with infertility in marriage.

It is suggested that the present study be conducted with homogenized groups in terms of infertility duration, age of marriage and psychological health.

One of the most important limitations of this study was that due to limited number of infertile samples, it was not possible to match and control variables, such as age, duration of infertility, age of marriage and psychological status.

Infertility decreases the level of couples' personal commitment to marital life and can undermine the quality of their relationship.

Dr. Gholamreza Hajati as well as the authorities of Sarem Hospital are appreciated for their cooperation to perform this research.

None declared.

Verbal consent was obtained from the subjects before study.

This article was extracted from the research (No. 2300950517) done in Sarem Hospital.

TABLES and CHARTS

Show attach file
Infertility is one of the main problems in a marriage, which can have various psychological consequences, including the inability to establish quality relationship between the couples and the instability of their marital commitment.

... [1-7]. Generally, couples facing infertility sometimes are more involved in social and occupational activities as well as family withdrawal and in some cases extramarital relations can be observed [8, 9]. ... [10]. Johnson et al. divide marital commitment into three types of personal, moral and structural commitment [11]. Personal commitment represents the individual's interest and desire to continue marital relationship, moral commitment reflects individual's moral loyalty to marriage and structural commitment also points to the barriers and limitations of leaving marriage or feeling compelled to continue that relationship or fear the consequences of divorce. … [13-24].

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between marital commitment and relationship quality of fertile couples compared with infertile couples.

This research was a descriptive cohort study.

This study was conducted between 2015 and 2016 on 170 fertile (N=89) and infertile (N=81) men and women referred to the Sarem Hospital.

200 subjects (96 infertile subjects and 104 fertile subjects) were selected as the sample by available sampling method, but due to incomplete and incorrect answers to the questionnaires, the final sample size was reduced to 170 cases (81 infertile and 89 fertile). The inclusion criteria included being married for more than two years and the age of 18-50 years.

The research tools included marital commitment questionnaire and couples' relationship quality questionnaire. Marital commitment questionnaire: Due to the Cronbach's alpha level obtained in all domains of marital commitment (commitment to spouse 0.88, commitment to marriage 0.78, sense of commitment 0.79, and marriage commitment 0.90), this scale has a relatively high reliability coefficient. … [25-27]. Couples' relationship quality questionnaire: The validity coefficient of the questionnaire is reported 0.8. The questionnaires were distributed among the individuals after obtaining permission from the research department of Sarem Hospital. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS 19 software. Pearson correlation test was used to examine the correlation between research variables in infertile and infertile couples and Student's t-test was used to compare research variables between two groups of fertile and infertile.

In general, there was a significant difference between fertile and infertile couples (P <0.05) in relationship quality as well as most of its subscales, including paying attention to yourself, problem solving and communication styles (p <0.05) and fertile couples showed higher scores. No statistical difference was found in marital commitment scale (p> 0.05) and only in personal commitment subscale fertile couples achieved higher scores than infertile couples (p = 0.0001; Table 1). In fertile couples, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and couples' relationship quality (r = 0.27, p <0.05). In general, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and its subscales and also all couples' relationship quality subscales. On the other hand, there was a positive and significant correlation between the quality of relationship with all its four subscales and also moral commitment and structural commitment subscales in marital commitment (p <0.05), however it showed no significant correlation with personal commitment subscale (p> 0.05; Table 2). In infertile couples, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and couples' relationship quality (r <0.18, p <0.05). In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between marital commitment and its subscales and with all couples' relationship quality subscales. On the other hand, there was a positive and significant correlation between the les' relationship quality with all its four subscales and also moral commitment and structural commitment subscales (p <0.05), but it showed no significant correlation with personal commitment subscale (p> 0.05; Table 3).

The findings of this study are in line with the results of some other relevant studies [3, 6, 16, 18]. In general, training how to make qualified communication, including having a good relationship with spouse, mutual understanding, sharing feelings and thoughts, using appropriate verbal tone, careful listening, using appropriate verbal and behavioral responses to the spouse and using a sense of gratitude towards a spouse will lead to emotional closeness and intimacy, which will reduce the problems associated with infertility in marriage.

It is suggested that the present study be conducted with homogenized groups in terms of infertility duration, age of marriage and psychological health.

One of the most important limitations of this study was that due to limited number of infertile samples, it was not possible to match and control variables, such as age, duration of infertility, age of marriage and psychological status.

Infertility decreases the level of couples' personal commitment to marital life and can undermine the quality of their relationship.

Dr. Gholamreza Hajati as well as the authorities of Sarem Hospital are appreciated for their cooperation to perform this research.

None declared.

Verbal consent was obtained from the subjects before study.

This article was extracted from the research (No. 2300950517) done in Sarem Hospital.

TABLES and CHARTS

Show attach file
Infertility is one of the main problems in a marriage, which can have various psychological consequences, including the inability to establish quality relationship between the couples and the instability of their marital commitment.

... [1-7]. Generally, couples facing infertility sometimes are more involved in social and occupational activities as well as family withdrawal and in some cases extramarital relations can be observed [8, 9]. ... [10]. Johnson et al. divide marital commitment into three types of personal, moral and structural commitment [11]. Personal commitment represents the individual's interest and desire to continue marital relationship, moral commitment reflects individual's moral loyalty to marriage and structural commitment also points to the barriers and limitations of leaving marriage or feeling compelled to continue that relationship or fear the consequences of divorce. … [13-24].

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between marital commitment and relationship quality of fertile couples compared with infertile couples.

This research was a descriptive cohort study.

This study was conducted between 2015 and 2016 on 170 fertile (N=89) and infertile (N=81) men and women referred to the Sarem Hospital.

200 subjects (96 infertile subjects and 104 fertile subjects) were selected as the sample by available sampling method, but due to incomplete and incorrect answers to the questionnaires, the final sample size was reduced to 170 cases (81 infertile and 89 fertile). The inclusion criteria included being married for more than two years and the age of 18-50 years.

The research tools included marital commitment questionnaire and couples' relationship quality questionnaire. Marital commitment questionnaire: Due to the Cronbach's alpha level obtained in all domains of marital commitment (commitment to spouse 0.88, commitment to marriage 0.78, sense of commitment 0.79, and marriage commitment 0.90), this scale has a relatively high reliability coefficient. … [25-27]. Couples' relationship quality questionnaire: The validity coefficient of the questionnaire is reported 0.8. The questionnaires were distributed among the individuals after obtaining permission from the research department of Sarem Hospital. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS 19 software. Pearson correlation test was used to examine the correlation between research variables in infertile and infertile couples and Student's t-test was used to compare research variables between two groups of fertile and infertile.

In general, there was a significant difference between fertile and infertile couples (P <0.05) in relationship quality as well as most of its subscales, including paying attention to yourself, problem solving and communication styles (p <0.05) and fertile couples showed higher scores. No statistical difference was found in marital commitment scale (p> 0.05) and only in personal commitment subscale fertile couples achieved higher scores than infertile couples (p = 0.0001; Table 1). In fertile couples, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and couples' relationship quality (r = 0.27, p <0.05). In general, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and its subscales and also all couples' relationship quality subscales. On the other hand, there was a positive and significant correlation between the quality of relationship with all its four subscales and also moral commitment and structural commitment subscales in marital commitment (p <0.05), however it showed no significant correlation with personal commitment subscale (p> 0.05; Table 2). In infertile couples, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital commitment and couples' relationship quality (r <0.18, p <0.05). In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between marital commitment and its subscales and with all couples' relationship quality subscales. On the other hand, there was a positive and significant correlation between the les' relationship quality with all its four subscales and also moral commitment and structural commitment subscales (p <0.05), but it showed no significant correlation with personal commitment subscale (p> 0.05; Table 3).

The findings of this study are in line with the results of some other relevant studies [3, 6, 16, 18]. In general, training how to make qualified communication, including having a good relationship with spouse, mutual understanding, sharing feelings and thoughts, using appropriate verbal tone, careful listening, using appropriate verbal and behavioral responses to the spouse and using a sense of gratitude towards a spouse will lead to emotional closeness and intimacy, which will reduce the problems associated with infertility in marriage.

It is suggested that the present study be conducted with homogenized groups in terms of infertility duration, age of marriage and psychological health.

One of the most important limitations of this study was that due to limited number of infertile samples, it was not possible to match and control variables, such as age, duration of infertility, age of marriage and psychological status.

Infertility decreases the level of couples' personal commitment to marital life and can undermine the quality of their relationship.

Dr. Gholamreza Hajati as well as the authorities of Sarem Hospital are appreciated for their cooperation to perform this research.

None declared.

Verbal consent was obtained from the subjects before study.

This article was extracted from the research (No. 2300950517) done in Sarem Hospital.

TABLES and CHARTS

Show attach file


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