Our department professor, Asst. Prof. Zahide Tepeli Temiz’s study with F. Işıl Bilican was published in the journal Anxiety, Stress & Coping.
External stressful experiences are often linked to poor relationship functioning. This study examined the relationship between COVID-19 stress and dyadic adaptation (DA) and tested whether the strength of this relationship depended on specific dyadic coping (DC) styles. Under COVID-19 stress, stress communication and supportive and shared dyadic coping were expected to be associated with higher levels of dyadic adaptation. Cross-sectional data were collected from 102 married couples in Türkiye. The mean ages of men and women were 35 and 32, respectively. Data were analyzed using Actor-Partner Dependency Moderation Models (APIMoM) with multilevel modeling. Findings showed that COVID-19 stress tended to reduce dyadic adaptation. Partners’ use of emotion-focused supportive dyadic coping styles and increased effective stress communication reduced the detrimental effects of COVID-19 stress on dyadic adjustment. These findings suggest that interventions focused on increasing emotional expression, stress communication, and partner validation in Türkiye may help alleviate the negative effects of acute crises on relational well-being.
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