Resilience and Coping with Stress and Marital Satisfaction of the Parents of Children with ASD during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Raising and caring for a child with ASD is a challenge for the parents' marriage relationship. Caring for a disabled child changes the functioning of the family and requires greater involvement in care and specialist therapy. The respondents' answers show that such parents experience higher levels of stress related to the upbringing and future of the child. However, parenting challenges need not be a negative experience if the parents support each other. The process of bringing up children in the family are related, inter alia, to the quality of their parents 'marriage, which is influenced by the partners' personal resources. The resilience of the partners and coping with this situation contribute to marital satisfaction. The aim of the study is to find out about the relationship between spouses' resilience and coping styles and their assessment of marriage satisfaction. In total, 50 married couples participated in the study-50 mothers of children with ASD and 50 fathers, the partners of these mothers (N = 100). The following tools were used: the Resilience Scale (SPP-25), the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) and the Well-Matched Marriage Questionnaire (KDM-2), as well as a survey questionnaire (data on respondents). The results show that the gender of the parent of a child with ASD does not differentiate the overall assessment of the quality of marriage (the overall score on the scale indicates a low level of satisfaction with the relationship). When analyzing in detail the dimensions of individual scales of satisfaction with the relationship, one statistically significant difference was noted for the sex of the respondents in the disappointment dimension, showing that the level of disappointment in the quality of the relationship is higher in wives than in husbands. In the other dimensions of satisfaction with marriage: intimacy, personal fulfillment, similarity, there were no statistically significant differences in terms of gender of the respondents. The resilience of the spouses positively correlates with their assessment of marriage satisfaction, and in particular, openness, perseverance and determination to act increase the level of Task-oriented coping (SSZ) with difficult situations. All resilience factors negatively correlate with the emotional coping style (SSE). In both the studied groups, openness is a significant predictor of intimacy, and persistence is a predictor of self-fulfilment in a relationship. A predictor of disappointment in women is managing using substitute activities (ACZ), while in men it is the Emotion-oriented coping (SSE) style. The results indicate the need to support married couples raising a child with ASD during the pandemic.

Lived experiences of Ugandan women who had recovered from a clinical diagnosis of postpartum depression: a phenomenological study.

BACKGROUND: Postpartum depression affects a significant proportion of women of childbearing age. The birth of a newborn baby is normally considered a joyful event, inhibiting mothers from expressing their depressive feelings. If the condition is not well understood and managed, mothers with postpartum depression are likely to experience suicidal ideation or even commit suicide. This study explored lived experiences of women who had recovered from a clinical diagnosis of postpartum depression in southwestern Uganda. METHODS: This phenomenological study adopted the explorative approach through in-depth interviews as guided by the biopsychosocial model of depression. It was conducted in Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, Bwizibwera Health Centre IV and Kinoni Health Centre IV located in Mbarara and Rwampara districts, southwestern Uganda. Data were collected from 30 postpartum mothers who were purposively selected, between 9th December 2019 and 25th September 2020. We analyzed this work using thematic data analysis and this was steered by the Colaizzi's six-step phenomenological approach of inquiry. RESULTS: The findings were summarized into five major themes: 1) somatic experiences including insomnia and headache, breast pain, poor breast milk production, weight loss and lack of energy; 2) difficulties in home and family life including overwhelming domestic chores, lack of social support from other family members, fighting at home and financial constraints due to COVID-19 pandemic; 3) negative emotions including anger, self-blame, despondency and feelings of loneliness and regrets of conceiving or marriage; 4) feelings of suicide, homicide and self-harm including suicidal ideation and attempt, homicidal ideations and attempt and feelings of self-harm and 5) coping with postpartum depression including spirituality, termination of or attempt to leave their marital relationships, acceptance, counselling and seeking medical treatment, perseverance. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Suicidal and homicidal thoughts are important parts of the postpartum depression experience, and these may put the lives of the mothers, their spouses and their babies at a great risk. Poor relationship quality, intimate partner violence and lack of financial resources contribute significantly to the negative emotional experiences of mothers with PPD.

Marriage and quality of life during COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people around the globe. Countries, including Indonesia, implemented large-scale social restrictions. Since marriage is found to be beneficial to people's quality of life (QoL), the study aimed to examine the QoL of married people in Indonesia during a large-scale social restriction of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online cross-sectional survey using Qualtrics was conducted in June 2020. Respondents' sociodemographic data, spouse data (as reported by the respondents), and pandemic-related data were collected, followed by QoL data, measured by WHQOOL-BREF. WHOQL-BREF consists of 26 questions grouped into four domains: physical, psychological, social relationships, and environmental. Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis H and Spearman correlation analyses were employed to compare QoL between groups of sociodemographic characteristics. In total, 603 respondents were recruited. The respondents' mean age is 35.3 years (SD = 7.61), most are females (82%), bachelor degree graduate (95%), Islam (78%), employed (69%), and assigned to work from home during the pandemic (76%). Married men reported better QoL in almost all domains than women; employed respondents reported higher QoL scores than unemployed; higher educated respondents reported higher QoL than those with lower education; respondents with higher income reported higher QoL than those with lower income. We found significant positive correlations between the QoL scores and age, spouse's age, and marriage length, although they were considered small. Compared to Indonesian population normative scores pre-pandemic, our sample reported no difference in physical and social domains, lower in the psychological domain, but higher in the environmental domain. Indonesian married people, especially women, those with low level of education, currently out of work, and below-average financial condition are the ones who reported worse quality of life during the lockdown. These results can help direct the Indonesian government efforts in dealing with psychosocial problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for married couples.

Jealousy and Electronic Intrusion Mediated by Relationship Uncertainty in Married and Cohabiting Couples During COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses unique threats to romantic relationships as couples were issued to stay at home by a mandatory order, limiting social interactions with others. Although technology allows for social interactions, the privacy of interactions through technology may be compromised. Electronic intrusion (EI) occurs when individuals covertly gain access of their partner's mobile device to go through content (e.g., text messages, private messages on social media sites), and previous study indicates serious consequences of EI, including increased rates of intimate partner violence, depressive symptoms, and heavy episodic drinking. This study examines jealousy, relationship uncertainty (RU), and EI in a sample of American adults. We hypothesized that jealousy would be related to greater acts of EI, and that this association will be mediated by RU. Data were collected from 754 Qualtrics Panels participants (50 percent male) with an average age of 41.7 years. Most participants (85.7 percent) were married. Results supported hypotheses, demonstrating that jealousy was associated with more EI, and this was due to uncertainty about the relationship's future. This study illuminates a need to study cyberdating abuse (CDA) in older and married populations. Future research should consider the effects of other relationship-specific emotions and cognitions on EI and further develop strategies aimed at reducing risks for CDA in romantic relationships.

COVID-19 and the surge of child marriages: A phenomenon in Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia.

BACKGROUND: Worldwide, there has been a massive increase in child marriages following the COVID-19 crisis. In Indonesia, too, this figure has risen with Indonesia ranked amongst ten countries with the highest rates of child marriage in the world. One of the Indonesian provinces with a high incidence of child marriage cases is in Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB). OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine what is causing the rate of child marriages to increase since the outbreak of COVID-19 in NTB. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Using snowball sampling techniques, the researcher selected 23 study participants, including ten parents (seven mothers and three fathers) with children who were married underage and 13 adolescents aged 14 to 17 years old (ten females and three males) who were married between March and December 2020. They came from two different regencies of NTB: Lombok Barat and Lombok Utara. METHODS: This study employed qualitative phenomenology as the method of inquiry. Data was obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed in a two-stage coding model. The results of the analysis were asserted on phenomenological themes. RESULTS: The data reveals that teenagers get married because: 1) they believe that marriage is an escape-from schoolwork, house chores, and the stress and boredom of studying and staying at home during the pandemic; 2) the customary law- some local customs encourage or permit child marriage; 3) there is a lack of understanding of the impact and long term implications of underage marriage; 4) economic problems- financial problems trigger parents to marry their children at a young age; and 5) the influence of the surrounding environment and peers, which encourages early marriage. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest a number of recommendations for the prevention of child marriage: 1) socializing the prevention of child marriage; 2) offering alternative activities and support systems for adolescents to overcome frustration and pressure due to online learning and staying at home; 3) changing society's view that marrying children solves adolescent promiscuity, prevents pregnancy, and addresses the issue of non-marital pregnancy.

Living in fear: The relationship between fear of COVID-19, distress, health, and marital satisfaction among Israeli women.

After the COVID-19 virus was officially declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the Israeli government adopted lockdown restrictions to limit its spread. The purpose of the present article is to examine the impact of this disturbing environment on Israeli women. Specifically, we examined whether fear of the virus would impact the women's distress symptoms, self-rated health (SRH), and marital satisfaction. A total of 130 Israeli married women with children completed the survey during the lockdown restrictions period. All participants reported that their children were living with them during the lockdown, and that no one had been infected by the virus. The results indicated that fear of COVID-19 was negatively associated with SRH as well as marital satisfaction, and positively associated with psychological distress. In addition, psychological distress mediated the link between fear of COVID-19 and both SRH and marital satisfaction. To mitigate similar negative consequences in the future, it is suggested that interventions should focus on the way the crisis is presented in the public domain. In addition, further research is recommended to identify the various indirect consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological, physical, and relational aspects among women.