Search

Relational reflexivity (RR) is an increasingly important aspect in order to understand the agency of individuals and the couple’s life, particularly in postmodern society. This mixed-methods resear...

Objective: The current study was aimed at exploring Italian parents' perceived negative and positive changes in family life during the COVID‐19 pandemic, taking into account the role of the stage of the family life and family size. Background: During the emergency of the COVID‐19 pandemic, millions of families drastically changed their daily life and routines. Little evidence exists on how family characteristics, such as family size or presence of children, are related to families' experience of family change. Method: A large sample of 1,407 Italian parents (70.1% mothers) filled in an anonymous online survey during the third week of the lockdown period (between March 30 and April 7, 2020). Results: Results showed that parents reported perceiving more positive changes than negative ones, especially in terms of feeling more emotionally close to their children and spending more fun time with them. Interestingly, parents with two or more children reported more positive changes in family life compared with parents who had one child, showing a greater relational regenerative capacity in the face of COVID‐19 lockdown. Conclusion and Implications: Investing in family relationships, especially for larger families, is an effective coping strategy to deal with traumatic situations and promote positive family changes in stressful situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Family Relations is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cardiac patients show alarming levels of nonadherence to medications. It is important to consider also patient activation levels. Furthermore, the partner could have a supporting role in these processes. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of patient health self-efficacy (HSE) in the link between dyadic coping (DC) and two self-management outcomes (i.e. medication adherence and patient activation) across the first 6 months of cardiac disease. One hundred couples completed two self-report questionnaires during the hospitalisation for cardiac disease and 6 months after discharge. A longitudinal and dyadic research design was adopted. Cross-sectional analyses at T0 revealed that patient-provided and perceived positive DC and common DC are positively associated with HSE, which in turn is positively associated with medication adherence. HSE mediated the association between patient positive and common DC styles, with the only exception of Patient-provided positive DC, and patient activation. Conversely, patient-provided and perceived negative DC are negatively associated with HSE, which in turns is positively associated with medication adherence and patient activation. Prospective analyses showed that only patient-perceived negative DC at discharge is negatively associated with HSE at T1, which in turns is positively associated with patient activation over time. These results suggest to consider patient perceived and provided DC as antecedents of self-management outcomes via patient HSE. Furthermore, our results recommend to pay particular attention to negative DC, whose negative consequences are manifested also over time, planning interventions targeting partners' awareness of their own DC style.

According to Brehm’s emotional intensity theory (EIT), the strength of feelings of romantic affect towards a romantic partner should vary as a cubic function of increasing levels of relationship stress (i.e., deterrence to feelings of romantic affect). The study tested this hypothesis in a true experiment with 80 young adults actually engaged in a romantic relationship, by systematically manipulating stress, through a recall procedure, across four distinct levels of intensity (control vs. low vs. moderate vs. high levels of manipulated stress). As predicted by emotional intensity theory, feelings of romantic affect were strong in the control condition, reduced in the low stress condition (low deterrence), maintained intense in the moderate stress condition (moderate deterrence), and reduced, again, in the high stress condition (high deterrence). Findings and both theoretical and practical implications for professionals and future research are discussed, with special emphasis on how to promote partners’ everyday adjustments to stress and emotional intensity regulation.

The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The sudden outbreak of this new virus and the measure of lockdown adopted to contain the epidemic have profoundly changed the lifestyles of the Italian population, with an impact on people’s quality of life and on their social relationships. In particular, due to forced and prolonged cohabitation, the couple itself may be subject to specific stressors during the epidemic. In addition, all the community was profoundly touched by COVID-19, but living with a chronic health condition may add specific challenges to the ones posed by the epidemic itself. The present cross-sectional study aimed to provide a picture of the challenges as well as the resources for both individual and relational well-being of Italian individuals in a couple relationship (N = 1921), with a specific attention to the comparison of individuals living with and without a chronic disease. Results showed that people with a chronic disease had lower psychological well-being and more fear and worries about the COVID-19. People with a chronic disease perceived fewer resources than the healthy people. Moreover, the challenges are shown to be associated with less psychological well-being and high pessimism about the future. Instead individual, relational and social resources play a protective role during the pandemic for both healthy and people with chronic disease.

After separation or divorce, people generally experience a deterioration of health, not only in terms of physical well-being but also in terms of emotional and social well-being. In addition, when separated, individuals are parents as well and they are concerned with the well-being of their children. The main task for separated parents is to maintain a parental alliance (coparenting) for the sake of their children's well-being. Social support is a critical resource, which helps parents face their new life condition, promoting their psychological well-being. In recent years in Italy, many associations targeting separated and divorced parents have been founded: They support ex-partners during and after separation and are active in defending their rights. These associations are voluntary associations/non-profit organisations and self-help groups, which are constituted by parents themselves who associate to support each other in the tasks connected with separation. The present study investigated, with an explorative aim, the role of these associations for separated parents' well-being and coparenting abilities. In particular, drawing on a sample of 318 Italian separated parents (73.30% fathers; 26.70% mothers) belonging to a formal association targeting separated parents, the study analysed whether and how the perception of being supported by the association was related to psychological and relational well-being and to coparenting. Results showed that the more parents perceived to be supported by the association the less they were depressed, the more they were satisfied with the relationship with children and friends, and the more they displayed coparenting abilities. Our findings suggest that social support from these associations is a resource for separated parents' health.

Partners often encounter situations in which their needs and preferences diverge. Partners sometimes prefer to be on their own and withdraw from interactions, and these situations can cause distress. We hypothesized that optimists may navigate such situations more adaptively. Using momentary assessment and questionnaire data from 103 couples, we examined how spouses responded to perceived partner withdrawal and whether optimism moderated these responses. When spouses perceived the partner to withdraw, they reported less positive and more negative behaviors. Optimism moderated this effect beyond the effects of positive expectations, suggesting that optimists are less reactive to withdrawal. Partners with more positive expectations reported more benevolent behaviors, although they reported less benevolent behaviors on days of partner withdrawal than on other days.

The current studies aimed, firstly, at exploring the relationship between the level of religiosity and marital outcomes, in terms of relationship quality and couple generativity; secondly, at gaining insight into which strategies the couples use to ensure their marital quality/couple generativity, and understanding if religious practices have a positive influence on the development of such strategies. The studies focused on a specific aspect of religiosity, that is the active involvement in a Catholic association, and compared couples with a high level of religious involvement (HRI) belonging to a Catholic international association (New Families) and couples with a low level of religious involvement (LRI). Study 1 (N = 194) adopted a quantitative approach and analyzed data from questionnaires administered in two phases. Study 2 (N = 32) adopted a qualitative approach (grounded theory) and analyzed data from semi-structured interviews. Results of Study 1 showed that HRI men scored higher in relationship quality and couple generativity than LRI men, while HRI women scored higher in couple generativity than LRI women. In Study 2, no differences were found between HRI and LRI couples with respect to the factors that ensure marital quality and generativity (care of the relationship, dialogue, sharing, maintenance of the centrality of the relationship), but HRI and LRI couples used different strategies to achieve these goals.

What is the role of family of origin in the formation of couple identity (i.e., considering couplehood as central to one's sense of self) among young adults? Two studies tested and supported the hypothesis that intrusive parenting hinders the couple identity of young adults. In Study 1, intrusive parenting was associated with weaker couple identity in a sample of 702 dating partners (351 couples). In Study 2, intrusive parenting was linked to a confused individual self-concept (i.e., lower self-concept clarity), which in turn was associated with weaker couple identity in a sample of 200 dating partners. Extra-relational factors, such as intrusive parenting, can and do predict the quality of couple identity.

A few studies examine patients’ (and partners’) individual and relational functioning after an acute cardiac event and no research focuses on the individual and relational factors associated with the patient’s engagement in his/her disease management. The present study aimed at exploring these variables in male and female patients as well as their partners. We pursued our objectives by taking advantage of a dyadic research design that involved both partners in the data collection, when present, and by including women patients in the sample. Findings showed that patients in a couple, compared to single patients, perceive that their illness had less serious consequences for their life and they were more engaged in their health care; that patients and partners showed comparable levels of distress; and that less depressed, more confident, and better informed patients were more likely to actively engage in their treatment. Findings are discussed in light of their implications for clinical practice.