Predicting marital adjustment of wives through emotional intelligence, health literacy, and perceived stress of diabetic husbands: mediating role of sexual satisfaction

Diabetes affects different aspects of life, e.g., work, quality of life, social-individual and psychological performance, and, most importantly, sexual performance, which may disrupt marital adjustment. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of marital adjustment of wives with emotional intelligence, health literacy, and perceived stress of diabetic husbands through the mediation role of sexual satisfaction. The path analysis technique was adopted to evaluate the proposed model in this descriptive-correlational study. The statistical population included 2116 married couples with diabetic husbands in Ahvaz, (Iran) in 2022. The convenience sampling method was employed to select 305 couples. The research instruments included the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Emotional Intelligence Scale, Health Literacy for Iranian Adults, Perceived Stress Scale, and Index of Sexual Satisfaction Scale. The data were analyzed using the statistical correlation method and structural equation modeling. According to the results, there was a significant relationship between husbands’ emotional intelligence and wives’ marital adjustment and sexual satisfaction (p < 0.01). There was a positive and significant relationship between husbands’ health literacy with wives’ marital adjustment and marital adjustment (p < 0.01). There was a negative and significant relationship between husbands’ perceived stress with wives’ marital adjustment and sexual satisfaction (p < 0.01). The relationship between sexual satisfaction and marital adjustment in the women was positive and significant (p < 0.01). The results showed that there was no significant relationship between husbands’ health literacy and wives’ marital adjustment. There were also significant indirect paths from the emotional intelligence, health literacy, and perceived stress of husbands to the marital adjustment of wives mediated by the sexual satisfaction of wives (p < 0.01). According to our findings, the final model had an acceptable fit (CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.042).