A comparative study of Iranian and afghan students of Islamic seminary in terms of the relationship between mental health and parenting styles with marital satisfaction

The present research aims to study the relationship between parenting styles, marital satisfaction, and mental health. In doing so, a total of 224 students of Islamic seminary (112 Iranians, 112 Afghans) were chosen by the convenience sampling method to fill in Baumrind’s Perceived Parenting Styles Questionnaire, Enrich 35-item Marital Satisfaction Scale, and General Health Questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS software.  The findings show that there are an inverse significant relationship at the -0.390 level between mental illness and marital satisfaction, an inverse relationship between authoritative and authoritarian styles and symptoms of mental disorder, and a direct relationship between permissive styles and symptoms of mental illness. The findings also show that there is a significant relationship at the 0.167 level between parenting styles and marital satisfaction. The authoritative style has a direct and significant relationship with components of marital satisfaction, whereas permissive and authoritarian styles do not have a significant relationship with marital satisfaction. Moreover, the results of multivariable regression showed that mental health, authoritative style, and depression symptoms can determine 0.19 of the variance of marital satisfaction. This comparative study of Iranian and Afghan students showed that there is no significant difference between the two groups in terms of marital satisfaction. The findings were accounted for by the fact that mental illness reduces marital satisfaction, because cognitions, tendencies and behaviors of suffering individual affect the level of their satisfaction. Furthermore, indulgent parenting styles will breed pampered individuals who cannot fulfill their marital duties, which in turn will decrease marital satisfaction.