Iran Journal of Nursing

  Background and Aim : Marital satisfaction is affected by many factors among which the safe and pleasurable sexual relationships is the most important. In Iran, like some other controversial societies, sexuality issues involve socio-cultural obstacles as well as limiting policies which make research difficult, so that inadequate information is made available in the area. The aim of this research was to determine sexual satisfaction level in the couples and its association with some demographic factors.

  Material and method : This descriptive-correlation study was conducted in 2007 in Tehran, Consecutive sampling was used to recruit 292 married males and females from selected hospitals in Tehran while visiting their hospitalized relatives. They were all literate and had gotten married for at least one year. Two questionnaires were used for data collection.

  Results: The results showed that, of the participants, 63.4% were completely satisfied, 28.8% relatively satisfied, 7.2% slightly satisfied, and 0.7% unsatisfied of sexual relationship. Also, the results showed that there was a statistical significant association between sexual satisfaction and the following factors: age difference of couples (p=0.04), duration of married life (p=0.05), and drug abuse by the participants (p=0.007), but there was not a statistical significant association between sexual satisfaction and other factors tested in this study (age, gender, reproductive status, economic status, number of children, education attainment, the spouse's education attainment, contraception method, and type of marriage).

  Conclusion: According to the results, we suggest the practical strategies to improve people’s awareness about sexuality and its vital influences on marital happiness. More work is suggested to be done in order to provide research based information in this field.