Phenomenological Analysis of Factors Affecting Quality of Marital Life in the Iranian Couples with POW Experience: A Qualitative Study

Captivity is one of the traumatic phenomena of war, which inflicts considerable damages on individual, interpersonal and ultimately, quality of marital life of prisoners of war. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting quality of marital life in the couples with POW experience using phenomenological research method. 65 participant couples were selected using purposeful sampling method respecting for diversity and homogeneity. Semi-structured interview was used to collect data and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings on the factors affecting prisoner of war quality of marital life included 25 sub themes that were classified into five main themes, including: interpersonal pathological interactions; individual psychological disorders; socio-economic factors; spiritual-ideological factors; and physiological pathological factors. The analysis of the structure of lived experiences of couples with POW experience revealed that the concept of quality of marital life in this community is a synergistic multi-factorial structure that requires an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach in applied interventions and theoretical researches at the prevention and treatment levels