Couples Communication and Marital Conflict among Married Civil Servants in Ebonyi State

Abstract

This study determines couples communication and marital conflict among married civil servants in Ebonyi State. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted cross-sectional survey research design with 1665 married civil servants in Ebonyi State (male, 968, female, 697) as the population of the study while the sample was 167 (male, 97, female, 70) representing 10% of the population in the study. Multistage sampling technique was adopted in the selection of the sample. A structured questionnaire which had two inventories was used to collect data namely: Personal Report of Spouse Communication Apprehension Scale (PRSCAS) and Self-Report Conflict Scale (SRCS). The instruments had a reliability coefficient of r = 0.92 and 0.72 respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions while stepwise multiple regression statistics was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that married civil servants in Ebonyi State had low level of couple’s communication and high level of marital conflict. There was a significant positive relationship between couples communication and marital conflict at r= 0.276 and the relationship was low, as couples communication explains only 7% of the variation. Therefore, the study concluded that there was low relationship between couples communication and marital conflict. The study recommended among others that Government, Non–governmental organization and health educators should mount enlightment programmes on effective couple’s communication and other factors that can reduce marital conflict especially on the formation stage in marriage.