YES, WE COPE: Dyadic Coping as a Mediator Between Perceived Relationship Quality and Emotional Representation of COVID-19

New and significant challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to profound changes in the way we have been living across the globe since the beginning of 2020. Although Portugal was the last country in Europe to be afflicted by COVID-19, the “state of alarm” was nevertheless declared on 15 March 2020. Between April and May 2020 1,410 people had died, and 30,622 people had been infected, significantly less than in other European countries (Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, 2021). The state of alert in Portugal called for general containment measures, capacity limits in public venues, and teleworking recommendations, among others (República Portuguesa XXII Governo, 2022). The prevention measures implemented were social distancing and home confinement (including restrictions on circulation outdoors, and the need to work from home or home-school children). For these reasons, individuals, couples and families radically changed their daily routines, especially during the first wave of COVID-19 when little was known about how the illness would progress (Mertens et al., 2020). In this sense, one of the challenges of the pandemic emerged when couples were required to spend extended amounts of time together, isolated at home for weeks on end, conditions which had an impact on intimate relationships (Williamson, 2020). According to data provided by Justice Ministry to Portuguese social media (Faria, 2021), fewer divorces and marriages occurred during lockdown; however, divorce rates increased after mandatory lockdown.

In this changing and stressful context for individuals, couples and families, the emotional representation of illness emerged as an important variable. In fact, along with the cognitive representation, emotional representation is one of the two components of illness representation considered in Leventhal et al. (1984) model as pointed out by Broadbent et al. (2006). It encompasses negative reactions such as fear, anger and distress and is of paramount importance because it correlates strongly with the ignorance and lack of knowledge about the illness. The literature has also pointed out that the person’s emotional (and cognitive) representation of the illness is highly relevant in predicting emotional adjustment to it (see, for instance, the meta-analysis review Hagger & Orbell, 2003). Besides, some studies show that people who reported “a heightened fear response to an unknown health threat” reveal “a highest emotional” representation of the illness (Broadbent et al., 2006, p. 636). Emotional representation is therefore strongly relevant in highly health threatening and unknown illnesses, such as COVID-19. The health threat of COVID-19 was particularly associated with higher risk populations, such as the elderly and children (Eiguren et al., 2021; Idoiaga et al., 2020). Nevertheless, COVID’s threat impacted individually and in couples’ relationships (Relvas et al., 2020) implying a major stress and requiring effective coping measures for a good adjustment. According to the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response Model (FAAR Model; McCubbin & Patterson 1983; Patterson, 1988) these adjustment/adaptation processes are mediated by family “meanings”, that is, the beliefs and representations about the stressor, in this case about the COVID-19 disease.

Studies reported that it is vitally important to understand how partners perceive the disease, as it may or may not help them adjust emotionally to the pandemic (Stephenson et al., 2020; Walsh & Stephenson, 2021). It has been observed that couples who had a longer lasting relationship showed a COVID-19 greater impact and less satisfaction with their partner (Mousavi, 2020). So, it seems that in intimate relationships, the partner plays a fundamental role in this balancing game between stress and the adjustment/adaptation movements. We know that it was proved that the experience of stress outside the relationship (i.e., external stressors such as work, financial issues, illness) can spill over into the relationship, thus generating stress between and having significant and negative impact on perceived quality of relationships (Chua et al., 2021; Conger et al., 1999; Cutrona et al., 2018; Karademas & Roussi, 2017). From this point of view, it is important to note that the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened socio-economic, political and health concerns and stress, that is to say an extreme emotional representation of the illness (Donato et al., 2021; Mertens et al., 2020). By the other side, COVID’s impact has decreased partner-related protective factors such as support, affection and positive climate (Fraenkel & Cho, 2020). Briefly, we can say that the pandemic has increased the risk factors for stress and reduced the protective ones both in individuals and couples. Recent meta-analysis among the general population concluded that COVID-19 not only causes physical health concerns but also results in a number of psychological disorders, namely impacts on the prevalence of individual anxiety, depression and psychological stress (e.g., Jin et al., 2021; Salari et al., 2020).

The Systemic-Transactional Model of Dyadic Coping acknowledges that partners’ experiences of stress and coping are interdependent (Bodenmann, 1995; Bodenmann et al., 2019). Bodenmann (1995) defines dyadic coping as a process partners use to cope with stressors, taking into account both individual and joint strategies for coping with stress. Indeed, diverse studies (Falconier et al., 2015; Karademas & Roussi, 2017; Vedes et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016; Randall & Messerschmitt-Coen, 2019) suggest that perceived partner positive dyadic coping strongly predicts perceived quality of relationship, contributing to reducing stress. Concerns about COVID-19 may tend to lessen the sense of well-being, but if explicit stress communication and partner coping are increased, well-being is not affected (Donato et al., 2021). In this sense, the way in which the partner responds to the other’s COVID-19- related stressors are said to protect individuals from the negative effects of pandemic stressors (Balzarini et al., 2023; Donato et al., 2021). Briefly, positive dyadic coping is commonly associated with decreased reports of stress and higher levels of satisfaction and perceived quality of relationships (Bar-Kalifa et al., 2022; Bodenmann et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2021; Cutrona et al., 2018; Donato et al., 2021; Harrison et al., 2021; Ogan et al., 2021; Vedes et al., 2016).

Understanding the factors that promote couples’ adjustment to stressful life events can help to generate intervention programmes that improve this adjustment. Given this, it is of paramount importance to examine how couples were coping with perceived impact of COVID-19. Considering The theoretical framework, to achieve that goal it seems important to assess the influence of relational quality on COVID-19 threat perception. As far as we know, these aspects have not yet been fully evaluated in Portuguese couples.

Table 2 includes descriptive statistics for relationship satisfaction and dyadic coping in the sample. Moderate levels of threat perception (emotional representation) and high levels of dyadic coping and partner satisfaction are observed. To test O1 - H1, H2 and H3, we carried out Pearson correlations (see Table 2). We found that perceived relationship quality was positively and linearly associated with dyadic coping (r_x = 0.71, p < .0001), and negatively and linearly associated with COVID-19 emotional representation (r_x = − 0.12, p = .006) and with relationship time (r_x = − 0.09, p = .048). Dyadic coping was negatively related to the emotional representation of COVID-19 (r_x = − 0.18, p < .0001).

To test O1-H1, H2, H3 and O2, a mediation analysis was performed wherein we examined whether dyadic coping mediated the association between perceived relationship quality and emotional representation of COVID-19 as measured by item 8 of the Brief IPQ (perceived illness threat questionnaire) (Table 3). The results showed that perceived relationship quality is negatively associated with emotional representation of COVID-19 (O1-H1). Indeed, the total effect of PRQC on Brief IPQ (c + a × b) was significant (β = -0.417, z = -2.732, p = .006). Analysing the indirect effects, results revealed that dyadic coping significantly mediated the association between perceived relationship quality and emotional representation of COVID-19, ab = − 0.045, z = -2.959, p = .003, 95% CI [-0.08, -0.02)]. Specifically, results showed that relationship quality was positively associated with dyadic coping (O1-H3), which was in turn negatively associated with emotional representation of COVID-19 (O1-H2; see Table 3). However, the results also suggested that without the indirect effect, the association between the perceived relationship quality and the emotional representation of COVID-19 would be non-significant (direct effect: β = -0.004, z = 0.167, p = .867). Indeed, the dyadic coping accounts for 92.67% of the relation between the perceived relationship quality and the emotional representation of COVID-19 (O1).

In order to assess whether the previous mediation effect of dyadic coping was moderated by relationship length (O3-H1), a moderated mediation analysis was conducted. Results showed that there was no association between relationship length and dyadic coping (β = 0.001, SE = 0.007, t = 1.79, p = .074). However, the interaction between perceived relationship quality and relationship length was statistically significant, (β= -0.001, SE = 0.001, t =- 2.60, p = .01), suggesting that relationship length moderated the association between perceived relationship quality and dyadic coping. As shown in Fig. 1, simple slopes analysis revealed that the mediation effect of dyadic coping between perceived relationship quality and emotional representation of COVID is stronger for couples with less time in a relationship than for couples in a longer relationship. This difference was statistically significant (95% CI [0.001, 0.025]). This result shows that as younger couples have a greater positive relationship between relationship quality and dyadic coping and as this is negatively related to emotional representation of COVID, younger couples are more dependent on good dyadic coping to manage the emotional representation of COVID.

This study was conducted to assess the interplay between dyadic coping and relationship quality and its effect on the emotional representation of COVID-19. Similarly, we wanted to observe which variable (dyadic coping or relationship quality) was the most relevant for the prediction of the COVID-19 emotional response. Finally, we wanted to evaluate the role of the relationship length.

For (O1, H1) we found that higher relationship quality was related to a less threatening representation of COVID-19. These findings confirm previous studies relating relationship quality to illness perception (Randall et al., 2022). Regarding dyadic coping (O1, H2) we found that it was associated with lower perceived threat of COVID-19. This seems to suggest that dyadic coping strategies could be a protective factor for perceived relationship quality during the pandemic. With reference to (O1, H3), we observe that the quality of the intimate partner relationship is associated with dyadic coping. Previous literature had pointed out the association between the quality of the couple’s relationship and the couple’s ability to cope with adversity (Pieh et al., 2020). These results support the assumption of the Systemic-Transactional Model of Dyadic Coping (Bodenmann, 1995). Thus, the better the couple’s stress coping strategies, the lower the impact of stressful events on the perceived quality of the couple’s relationship (Bodenmann, 1995).

Regarding (O2), we observed that dyadic coping was the most relevant variable for predicting the emotional perception of COVID-19. Previous work points to the importance of dyadic coping in dealing with adversity (Bodenmann, 1995). However, these results are particularly novel because although other studies have recognised the relationship between the perceived quality of the couple’s relationship and stress, in our work this association is mostly explained by the couple’s dyadic coping. In fact, this association only exists due to the indirect effect, i.e., the perceived relationship quality is positively associated with dyadic coping and dyadic coping, in turn, negatively affects the emotional representation of COVID-19.

The previous literature had identified the role of dyadic couple coping in situations of physical and mental illness (Chen et al., 2021; Karademas, 2022; Meier et al., 2021). However, the mediating effect of this variable in the context of COVID-19 was not known. In this sense, the concept of “we-illness” applies to actual circumstances of physical or mental illness in one of the partners. Thus, couples deal with illness as a shared event, rather than as an individual experience (Falconier et al., 2015). Although in our sample most people had not had contact with COVID-19 (91.1%), they were confronted with an event that caused great uncertainty and a sense of threat, in this experience of an unprecedented social situation.

Finally, as for (O3, H1), we observe that younger couples are more dependent on good dyadic coping to manage COVID-19 emotional representation. Moreover, this study allows us to conclude that the relationship length moderates the association between the perceived quality of the couple’s relationship and dyadic coping. When couples have been together for a shorter period of time, this association was stronger. Consequently, the mediation effect of dyadic coping between perceived relationship quality and the emotional representation of COVID-19 is moderated by the relationship length. In the same way, this mediation role was stronger for couples who have been together for a shorter period. This result seems to indicate that dyadic coping plays a central role for the perception of relationship quality in young couples, but a less important role in couples in more long-term relationships. This is a very relevant finding considering the lack of clues in the literature about relationship length and dyadic coping. Someway our results are in line with the findings reported by Landis et al. (2013), showing that for older couples the individual support perception was more important for marital satisfaction than dyadic coping. In fact, most of the studies between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction correlation were made including samples of young and middle-aged married individual (Bodenmann, 2000) and the predictive power of dyadic coping for older adults’ relationship satisfaction has received relatively little attention. According to literature, older couples showed a reduced conflict potential, more sources of pleasure and are experts at regulating their own and their socials partners’ emotions (Fingerman & Charles, 2010; Levenson et al., 1993). So, in individuals in older romantic relationships maybe there are other important variables that along with the dyadic coping would better explain the relationship satisfaction, assuming the dyadic coping a more determinant role for individuals in a young romantic relationship. Regarding these findings, psychological interventions targeting dyadic coping would be useful to prevent less adaptive emotional representations of COVID-19 and similar stressful events in the future, mainly in young couples.

Overall, our results show that dyadic coping is a highly relevant variable for the prediction of COVID-19 emotional representation, much more so than partner satisfaction. This is especially relevant for young couples, who may be more vulnerable to stress than their older counterparts. We conclude that the present work can form a basis for future studies where interventions focusing on dyadic coping are developed with the aim of improving couples’ well-being in the face of adversity.

Tables and Figures.