Emotional Intelligence and Marital Quality amongthe Wives of Alcohol Dependents

Abstract

Alcohol consumption is highly prevalent globally and it wasfound to be on raise in India in
recent decades. Alcohol dependence was found to be associated with many serious issues such as
socio-economic losses, violence, childneglect and abuse, absenteeism, poor performance, etc. One
cannot deny the fact that, the alcohol consumption harms or affects others significantly related to
them. Spouses of the alcohol dependents are more vulnerable to such effects in a family. The
alcohol dependence can affect the marital quality and also can have an impact on the emotional
intelligence of the spouses. Considering this, and the paucity of research in this area, the present
study is an attempt to understand and measure the level of Emotional Intelligence and the Marital
Quality among the Wives of Alcohol dependents (WAD). Thirty WDA were selected from
TRISHUL- a De-Addiction centre, Madurai using simple random sampling technique. By using
matching technique an equal number of Wives whose Husbands are not alcohol dependants were
also selected. Comparative Cross Sectional Research Design was adopted for the study. The
measuressuch as emotionalintelligence scaleand Marital quality scalewas used to obtain the data
fromthe participants.Chi-Square, 't'–test and correlation was done to analyse the data. The results
revealed that wives of alcohol dependents had lower levels of emotional intelligence and poor
marital quality when compared with their counterparts. Further, it was found that higher the
Emotional Intelligence higher will be the Marital Quality among the Wife of Alcohol Dependents.
The study emphasises need for planning various strategies to enhance the emotional intelligence
and improving the marital quality of the spouses of alcohol dependents to ensure the well-being of
thesefamilies.