Relationship satisfaction and psychological well-being among Greek people with physical disabilities

Abstract

A substantial amount of existing research regarding the experience of individuals living with physical disabilities has been done; yet, little is known as to how the carnal infirmity takes hold of the quality of romantic relationships. In the light of this lack of knowledge, the present study attempted to explore the degree of relationship satisfaction (RS) in connection with the way disabled people deal with the challenges of romantic involvement, as well as the emotional outcome originating on dyadic experience. In this study, 48 physically disabled individuals between the ages of 20-45 years completed the Relationship Assessment Scale and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale. Moreover, two questionnaires were constructed for the purpose of gathering descriptive data on matters concerning subjects’ demographic characteristics as well as information regarding severity of disability. As expected, no association was found from the analysis of data, suggesting that disability did not affect participants degree of satisfaction in a negative way; subjects were found to be somehow satisfied with their relationships. Moreover, other factors such as educational level, severity level as well as the type of impairment were found to predict participants' degree of satisfaction within their relationships. Furthermore, no association between subjects’ gender and relationship satisfaction was indicated, suggesting that impaired female partakers do not differ in terms of dyadic experience when compared with their male counterparts. Finally, participants were found to have mild depression, anxiety, and stress however, these findings do not associate with subjects' level of relationship satisfaction.