Marital satisfaction, patterns of spousal interaction, and individual ways of coping among Russian immigrants

The main objective of this exploratory study was to examine the relationships among marital satisfaction, time since immigration, patterns of spousal interaction, and individual coping strategies of married Russian immigrants. One hundred currently married Russian individuals, who immigrated to the U.S. in the last 14 years, participated in this study.;Several questionnaires were translated in Russian to assess the dependent variables: Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (to assess marital satisfaction), California Inventory for Family Assessment (to assess spouse's closeness-caregiving, intrusiveness, and openness of communication), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (to assess social support received from significant other, friends, and family), and Ways of Coping Questionnaire (to assess coping style). The first three proved to be reliable with this Russian sample and generally correlated with one another in the manner predicted, which provided evidence for their validity. However, the reliability of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire was unacceptably low. Therefore was not possible to evaluate the research questions pertaining to ways of coping.;Contrary to the hypothesis based on existing family and multicultural theories, the data showed no significant relationship (curvilinear or linear) between marital satisfaction and time (number of months) since immigration. However, the results were largely consistent with the hypotheses on relationships between marital satisfaction, perceived social support, and ratings of spouse's behavior. The strong reliability and validity findings on the Russian translations of the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale, the California Inventory for Family Assessment, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support suggest that these measures would be suitable for future research on Russian couples.;Analyses of the data provided some unexpected results that gave insight into the complexity of the process of immigration and adaptation of Russian families. Moreover, because the eligibility criteria for the present cross-sectional study included only couples who were still married, there still remains the possibility that marital satisfaction might show a curvilinear or linear relationship with time since immigration for couples who divorce after immigration. Longitudinal methods are preferable for such research.;Overall, this exploratory study provides initial information on Russian immigrant couples and suggests the directions for future research.