PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT AND PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP AS CORRELATES OF MARITAL QUALITY AMONG MARRIED PERSONS

The intention of this paper was to explore the association between perceived social support parent-child relationship and marital quality among married persons running part-time degree programmes in Universities in Oyo state. Purposive sampling was employed while randomisation was used to select 90 participants from each of the 4 universities running part time degree programmes totaling 360 samples. Data collection was done using validated instruments of Perceived Social Support Scale (r = 0.939), Parent-Child Relationship Scale (r = 0.805) and Parental Marital Quality Scale (r = 0.877). Multiple regression was the statistical measure used to analyze the date. The major results indicated that the contribution of perceived social support to the prediction of parental marital quality was stronger when compared to parent-child relationship {F(2,309)=18.680}. The regression analysis revealed that the two factors jointly accounted for 41.1% of the total variance in parental marital quality. Also, perceived social support and parent-child relationship jointly contributed significantly to the prediction of marital quality. In terms of magnitude of contribution, perceived social support made the most significant contribution (βeta = .642;<.05) to the prediction, while parent-child relationship also made significant contribution (βeta = .266; p<.05). Pathways were presented for counselling practitioners, policy makers and researchers to support family wellbeing, and their mental health thereby promoting good parental-marital quality.