Sexual and Marital Relationship Satisfaction in Parents of Children With Disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of sexual satisfaction and type of relationship between spouses, and then to determine the correlation between these variables and independent variables. These include: disability type of the child, the number of children in the family, and the gender of the parents. The hypothesis was that ‘the level of sexual satisfaction in parents is significantly related to the type of disability possessed by their children’ and similarly it was found that disability type significantly affects the type of relationship between parents. The research was conducted using the Matched Marriage Questionnaire (MMQ) and the Sexual Satisfaction Scale (SSS). The data obtained in the study showed that most spouses experience high and average sexual satisfaction and no particular differences between men and women were observed. The differences appeared when analyzing parents of a child with autism. In this group the results were more diverse in the detailed descriptions of the scale. The results obtained regarding marital relationship satisfaction indicate a not very favorable picture of the relationships of the surveyed subjects.