Phenomenology of Effective Psychological Components on Marital Adjustment among Married People Suffering from Multiple Sclerosis

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) disease has side effects on the quality of life of married people. Moreover, the quality of life and marital adjustment of the patients would impact on their disease process. The purpose of the study was to determine psychological components on marital adjustment among married patients with MS. Method: This was a qualitative and phenomenological research using targeted sampling. Semi-structured interviews were done with ۱۵ married patients with MS (at least one of them suffered from the disease) who came to Sina hospital, Tehran, Iran, until reaching to data saturation. Results: Assessment of effective psychological components on marital adjustment among married people with MS revealed ۸ main themes and ۱۸ subthemes. The main themes were as “spirituality”, “resiliency”, “coping with stress skills”, “conflict-resolving strategies”, “schemas”, “intimate spouse relationships”, “life stresses”, “openness to change”, and “responding to forgiveness”. Conclusion: Participants in the study ranked the psychological components as first to ninth as spirituality, resiliency, coping with stress styles, conflict-resolving strategies, schemas, intimate spouses relationships, life stresses, openness to change, and responding to forgiveness.

Keywords:

Adjustment , Multiple Sclerosis , Marriage ‚Qualitative research