Introduction:
Myocardial
infarction is a life threatening event and often reduces the quality of life of
patients and their families’ particularly close and intimate persons such as
spouses. The aim of study was to determine quality of marital relationship of
spouses of patients with and without a history of myocardial infarction.
Materials
and Methods: This descriptive-comparative study has
been done on 162 spouses of patients with myocardial infarction admitted in
educational hospitals of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences by convenience
sampling method and 162 spouses of healthy persons (324 married individuals).
Data were collected by “Perceived Relationship Quality Components (PRQC)
questionnaire with approved validity and reliability in Iran. Data was analyzed
with SPSS/16.
Findings: 42% of the samples were male and
58% female, with an overall mean age of 47.89±5.95, average length of common life 25.32±7.48.In addition, 56.7%
of the respondents had diploma or higher education. The results also
illustrated that the mean score of quality of marital relationship on the
dimensions of satisfaction, passion and love in patient’ spouseswith a history of myocardial infarction was
13.37±5.03, 10.67±4.56, 19.56± 2.56
respectively and in healthy persons spouses was 18.92±2.85, 18±3.14, 20.37±1.36. U-Mann Whitney test results determine
that these differences are statistically significant (P<0.001).
Conclusion:
MI
disease has a negative impact on the overall quality of marital relationship,
especially on the dimensions of satisfaction, passion and love between couples.
Hence, the inclusion of family educational programs and couple therapy in heart
disease rehabilitation program is important in order to improve the quality of
marital relationship and subsequent quality of life patients and their family’s
needs.
Sarhadi M, Navidian A, Fasihi Harandy T, Ansari Moghadam A. Comparing quality of marital relationship of spouses of patients with and without a history of myocardial infarction. JHPM 2013; 2 (1) :39-48 URL: http://jhpm.ir/article-1-95-en.html