The couple’s congruence of child’s illness perception and the quality of marital relationship

Abstract

This study aims to test whether a couple’s congruence regarding the perception of their child’s illness has an influence on the quality of a marital relationship. This research involved 106 parents of children with autism. The results show a significant effect of the couple’s congruence of the perception of their child’s illness on couple satisfaction F (2.103) = 3.61, p = .03, parental stress F (2.103) = 17.89, p <.001, dyadic coping F (2.103) = 9.23, p <.001 and family resilience, F (2.103) = 10.43, p <.001. The findings indicate a decreasing trend of couple satisfaction, family resilience and dyadic coping as well as an increasing trend of parental stress when the couple’s congruence of illness perception increases.Â