Influence of Marital Communication on Cancer Coping, Health Promoting Behavior, and Subjective Happiness in Elderly Cancer Patients

Purpose: This study examined the effect of marital communication on cancer coping, health promoting behavior, and subjective happiness in elderly cancer patients.Methods: The participants were 88 older patients with cancer living with a spouse for at least one year. Data collected through a questionnaire covering general characteristics, marital communications, cancer coping, health promoting behavior, and subjective happiness were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, and a simple linear regression test using the SPSS 26.0.Results: Marital communications showed a positive correlation with cancer coping (r=.54, p<.001), health promoting behavior (r=.47, p<.001), and subjective happiness (r=.46, p<.001). Positive marital communications had the greatest influence on cancer coping (β=.54, p<.001).Conclusion: The findings suggest that developing nursing interventions that can enhance marital communications between older patients with cancer and their spouses could improve their quality of living.

Mobile Phone and Family Happiness, Mediating Role of Marital Communication: An Attachment Theory Perspective

Mobile phone communication has established itself as an essential element of people's personal and working lives medium of connection in daily interactions and relationships. It has thus become significant for the most intimate form of interpersonal relations, including marital relationships. This small-scale research seeks to find the importance of mobile phone communication in marriage and its influence on family happiness. The study unearths the patterns of mobile phone communication among married partners, by outlining the most common reasons for communicating with the spouse on a mobile phone. In this research, a survey was conducted using a questionnaire to collect data from 30 respondents who were married partners, staff, or students in one of the state-owned universities in South Kalimantan. Each of the respondents possessed a mobile phone. The Mann-Whitney test indicates that the males profoundly believed that mobile phone communication was more important to their marriage than females to strengthen their relationship. Also, the males reported a higher frequency of sending messages and calling their spouses. By and large, the study results describe the most common reasons for communicating with the spouse. The outstanding reason is maintaining a strong intimate relationship by keeping in touch, sharing updates, emotions, feelings, knowing about children, and ensuring the safety of each other through checking on one another using a mobile phone. The findings have significance in showing the need for continued communication in a marital relationship, especially by using the fastest and most comfortable means of mobile phone. Given the synchronous nature of mobile phone communication, the results indicate that married spouses cannot do without it, especially in this Information Society, where we need updates from our spouses, children, friends, and the situation at large.

Marital communication and coping with stress among parents of children with ASD during the SARS CoV 2 pandemic

The article presents the correlation between marital communication and the coping styles of parents of a child with ASD during the SARS CoV-2 pandemic. The study involved 46 married mothers and 34 married fathers raising children with autism spectrum disorders. The following tools were used: The Marital Communication Questionnaire (KKM) by M. Plopa and M. Kazmierczak and the Polish version of the CISS Coping Questionnaire by Endler and Park. The results of the research showed that respondents more often prefer constructive coping with stress using the task focused style (SSZ) if a spouse assesses both themselves and their spouse as more supportive and engaged in communication and less depreciation. The respondents more often prefer non-constructive coping with stress using and the emotion-focused style (SSE) or the avoidance-focused style (SSU), if the spouse assesses both themselves and their spouse as depressed. The greater the difference between their own assessment and the assessment of their spouse in supportive communication, the more often the respondents prefer the style focused on emotions (SSE) and the style focused on avoidance (SSU). Moreover, the greater the difference between self-assessment and that of the spouse in depreciation communication, the less often the task-focused style (SSZ) was preferred. The results are statistically significant.

Evaluation of an Online Gottman’s Psychoeducational Intervention to Improve Marital Communication among Iranian Couples

Amounting evidence indicates that insufficient knowledge of marital communication skills leads to destructive interactions and poor marital adjustments in couples, especially during stressful situations. Despite the high effectiveness of Gottman’s psychoeducational intervention, there is a lack of study on the online Gottman’s psychoeducation intervention (O-GPI) to improve marital communication and dyadic adjustments. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of O-GPI on the improvement of marital communication patterns among Iranian couples. Method: The study followed a single-blind parallel group in a randomized controlled trial using an experimental longitudinal design, comprising 72 heterosexual couples living in Shiraz, Iran, with a 1–7-year marital age and no severe marital problems. The experimental group received eight consecutive O-GPIs via the Zoom platform, while the control group received information related to parenting skills via email. The outcome measures were the three patterns of communication: (i) constructive communication; (ii) demand–withdraw communication; and (iii) mutual avoidance communication—the screening measure was the dyadic adjustment scale. Results: The findings indicated that O-GPI could improve couples’ constructive communication significantly (45% for husbands and 40% wives) and decrease their total demand–withdrawal (51% for husbands and 65% wives) and mutual avoidance communication (60% for husbands and 62% wives). Limitations: Due to the homogenous nature of the sample, generalizations should be made with caution. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the online Gottman’s psychoeducational intervention to improve couples’ communication patterns.