Comunicazione dello stress, coping diadico e benessere della coppia

STRESS COMMUNICATION, DYADIC COPING AND COUPLE SATISFACTION: A CROSS-SECTIONAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY Anna Bertoni, Daniela Barni, Guy Bodenmann, Linda Charvoz, Simona Gagliardi, Raffaella Iafrate, Rosa Rosnati. Within a broader research project, we carried out a cross-cultural study aimed to analyse the link among stress communication, dyadic coping and marital adjustment in a sample of Italian and Swiss couples. The sample was composed of 349 couples (141 Italian couples and 208 Swiss couples) subdivided in Very Young Couples (0-3 years of relationship), Young Couples (3-10 years), Adult Couples (10-20 years), Advanced Couples (over 20 years). The instrument used was a self report questionnaire including the Dyadic Coping Questionnaire (Bodenmann, 1997) and the PFB (Halweg, 1996). The analyses (ANOVA; hyerarchical regression) showed that dyadic coping is the most important predictor of relationship quality; it is performed more frequently by Swiss couples than by Italian ones and by Young couples than by Advanced ones. Stress communication is better in Young couples and couples' satisfaction decreases in time.