ABSTRACT
Background: Infertility, one of life's great stressors, may adversely affect marital satisfaction. No studies have in- vestigated the relationship between perceived stress and marital satisfaction at the dyadic level. The current study assessed the actor and partner effects of perceived stress on marital satisfaction in husband-wife dyads using an innovative dyadic analysis approach, the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model [APIM]
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we recruited a total of 141 infertile couples. Marital satisfaction and stress were assessed using the ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale [EMS Scale] and Perceived Stress Scale-4 Item [PSS-4], respectively. Dyadic data have been analysed by the APIM approach, with distinguishable dyads. In this approach, actor effect is the impact of a person?s perceived stress on his/her own marital satisfaction. Partner effect is the impact of a person's perceived stress on the partner?s marital satisfaction
Results: Both men and women's perceived stress exhibited an actor effect on their marital satisfaction [beta=-0.312, P<0.001, beta=-0.405, P<0.001, respectively]. Women's perceived stress had a negative relationship to the marital satis- faction of their partner [beta=-0.174, P=0.040]. Although the partner effect of men's perceived stress on woman's marital satisfaction was not significant [beta=-0.138, P=0.096], women whose husbands had higher levels of stress were more likely to have poorer marital satisfaction. Both actor and partner effects of perceived stress on marital satisfaction were similar among men and their wives
Conclusion: The findings of this study have highlighted that marital satisfaction in patients with infertility was in- fluenced by not only their own perceived stress, but also their spouses' perceived stresses. Therefore, psychological interventions that target a reduction in perceived stress and enhancement of marital satisfaction in the context of infer- tility should treat the couple as a unit
ABSTRACT
Periodontitis is one of the most common oral diseases with the various incidence rates in different populations. A number of bacteria are considered as the major etiologic agents of periodontitis. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of periodontopathogen bacteria in patients using both PCR and culture techniques. In this study, one hundred patients [including 62 females and 38 males with an average age of 49 +/- 11.5 years] with adult periodontitis referred to periodontics department of School of Dentistry/Tehran University of Medical Sciences were investigated. The samples were taken and sent immediately to the laboratory for culture and molecular evaluation. The PCR was performed using specific primers and the statistical analysis of data was performed using SPSS statistic software and McNemar test. The results demonstrated that the total detection rate in culture method was 64%. The rate of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans [Aa] was 28% which was significantly higher than that of Porphyromonas gingivalis [Pg] [6%] and Prevotella intermedia [Pi] [3%]. 27% of cases showed mixed bacterial growth. 65% of patients were positive using molecular method. The rate of Aa [30%] was significantly higher than that of Pg [7%] and Pi [5%]. The mixed PCR positive rate containing of Aa, Pg and Pi was [23%].In this study, it was found that most of the bacteria isolated using culture and molecular methods were Aa, Pg and Pi, respectively. Although the detection frequencies of both techniques were similar, the specificity, sensitivity and bacterial detection speed of the PCR technique is obviously higher. Therefore, the use of molecular techniques is strongly recommended. However, both techniques seem to be suitable for microbiological diagnostics.