Impact of Sexual Communication on Marital Adjustment and Mental Health, Mediating role of Sexual Coercion

The current study examined the relationship between sexual communication, marital adjustment, and mental health with mediating role of sexual coercion in the sexual coercion victims. Purposive sampling and snowball sampling technique were used to obtain the sample of married women. A total of N=204 women from different rural and urban areas of Pakistan participated in the study. All the participants were above 18 years of age, and married for more than one year, and had at least one child. Quantitative research was done, and the assessment tools used for the data collection included the Sexual coercion in the Intimate Relationships Scale, Mental Health Inventory-5, Marital Adjustment Test (MAT), and The Dyadic Sexual Communication Scale (DSC). All the analysis was performed using SPSS version 25 and process macro. Statistical analysis included Correlation, Regression, Mediation, and ANOVA. The study revealed significant positive relationship between sexual communication and marital adjustment. A negative correlation exists between sexual coercion and mental health in married women. Sexual coercion also negatively predicts mental health and marital adjustment. Sexual coercion mediates the relationship between sexual communication and marital adjustment. There are significant differences in sexual communication, sexual coercion and mental health of victims of sexual coercion when their education status is considered, but there are no significant differences in marital adjustment of victims of sexual coercion on the basis of education status. Significant differences were found in sexual communication, sexual coercion, mental health and marital adjustment on the basis of socioeconomic status.