Determinants of Marital Dissolution in Tepi city Administration and Mizan Aman city Administration

Abstract

Background: Marital dissolution or divorce is one of the most dramatic events that can befall in a family. Compared to people in their first marriage, people who are currently married but have ever been divorced have a worse self-rated health, more chronic conditions, more mobility limitations, and more depressive symptoms. The objective of this study was to examine the determinants of marital dissolution in Tepi and Mizan-Aman city administration. Methods: A community based retrospective study design was conducted to assess factors associated with marital dissolution of ever-married individuals in study area using descriptive and inferential analysis. Multi–Stage sampling technique was used to select appropriate sample. From the survival analysis models; the Cox-proportional hazard model was selected to identify the factors associated with marital dissolution. Results: About 23.9% of participants were divorced or separated from their first partners and the mean survival time was 32 years and one month. Participants who were very unsatisfied and unsatisfied by encouraging support, sexual compatibility, and life before marriage and giving admiration from their partners were more exposed to divorce compared to very satisfied and satisfied. Cox proportional hazard regression model revealed that age, partner’s education levels, occupation, lie partner, consultancy and conflict resolution methods had significant effects on survival time of duration of marriage. The risk of marital dissolution was significantly lower for uneducated partners (HR=0.0.296; P=0.039), merchant (HR= 0.408; P= 0.007) and participants who never lie their partners (HR= 0.265; P = 0.000) compared to their counterpart. Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrated that age group, partner’s education level, occupation type, lie partner, getting consultancy about marriage, and conflict resolution methods have significant effect on the survival time of marital dissolution. Participants whose age was less than or equal to 20 year during study time was more exposed to marital dissolution than whose age was greater than 40 years old. This implies that early marriage had significant effect on the duration of ever-married couples. Respondents who got consultancy about the marriage was less likely to divorce compared to participants who didn’t get consultancy