A Study on the Relationship between Difficulties in Emotion Regulation and Marital Adjustment in Cancer Patients and their Spouses

Abstract

Cancer is a disease that may pose a serious threat to life and it can have a negative effect on marital adjustment in cancer patients and their spouses. Bad state of marital adjustment can have a negative effect on cancer patient’s attempts on adjusting to life and to the quality of life. Moreover, it can also harm the stability of marriage. Therefore efforts should be made to help the couple adjust to cancer. The purpose of this research is to figure out the factors that can affect the marital adjustment of cancer patient couples. This research has verified the effects of difficulties in emotion regulation has on marital adjustment which had been known to be a crucial point in personal mental health and interpersonal relationships. Considering the interdependence of cancer patient and his or her spouse, information from 159 couples were collected and Actor-Partner Interdependence Model(APIM) was used for analysis. Through the result of the research, it has been found out that difficulties in emotion regulation has significant negative effect on each of the couples in marital relationship. Cancer patient’s difficulties in emotion regulation is found out to have significant negative effect on the spouse’s marital adjustment. Based on this result, conclusion had been reached that emotional adjustment program and services in order to help the cancer patient’s spouses express the anguish and shock they have felt when the spouse fell ill with cancer by accepting one’s own emotion and recognize what they are going through. It had been concluded that clinically psychosocial support program and service needs to be in a form of counseling in pairs because couples do affect each other in marriage.