Psychological Distress, Coping Strategies and Marital Adjustment among Married University Students

Abstract

The aim of current study is to explore the relationship among psychological distress, coping strategies and marital adjustment among married university students and to study the relationship between demographic (Duration of marriage, grades, number of children, family structure, source of income and socio-economic status) with study variables (psychological distress, coping strategies and marital adjustment). After detailed literature review, hypotheses were formed for the present study which include, 1) There will be a significant predictive relationship between Coping-strategies (Emotion-focused coping, Problem-focused coping & Dysfunctional coping) and Psychological-distress among married university students. 2) There will be a significant predictive relationship between Coping-strategies (Emotion-focused coping, Problem-focused coping & Dysfunctional coping) and marital adjustment among married university students. 3) Males and Females gender will vary significantly on the variables of psychological-distress, coping-strategies and marital-adjustment. 4) Educational Groups will vary significantly on the variables of psychological-distress, coping-strategies and marital adjustment. 5) Working and non-working groups will vary significantly on the variables of psychological-distress, coping-strategies and marital-adjustment. 6) Nuclear and joint family structure groups will vary significantly on the variables of psychological-distress, coping strategies and marital-adjustment. 7) Source of income groups will vary significantly on the variables of psychological-distress, coping-strategies and marital adjustment. 8) Socio-economic groups will vary significantly on the variables of psychological-distress, coping-strategies and marital adjustment. The total sample comprised of 250 married university students (118 males and 132 females), age ranging from 20 to 40 years. Demographic data sheet, Kesseler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) (Kessler, Andrews, & Colpe, 2002) to measure Psychological Distress, Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) to measure Coping Strategies, and Locke- Wallace Marital Adjustment Test (Locke & Wallace, 1959)to measure Marital Adjustment, were used for the purpose of data collection from the participants. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation, Multiple Regression Analysis, Independent sample t-test, ANOVA analysis of covariance and Post hoc analysis were used to analyze and interpret research data. Results indicate that there was a significant negative association between psychological-distress, emotion-focused coping and problem-focused. While a significant positive relationship was found between psychological-distress and dysfunctional-coping. There was a significant negative relationship is present among psychological-distress and marital adjustment. Females married university students scored high on the variables of emotion-focused and problem-focused coping. While non-working married university students scored high on emotion-focused coping and marital-adjustment revealing that non-working group use more emotional based coping and are well adjusted to their marital relationship. Similarly married students who live nuclear were more using emotional-coping. Post-graduate married university students use more emotion based coping strategies than other educational groups. Source of income also showed that couples where one partner was earning used adaptive coping strategies i.e. emotion-focused and problem-focused coping.