Couple resilience and life wellbeing in firefighters

AbstractThe validity of the Couple Resilience Inventory was tested using 102 married or cohabiting firefighters. This instrument measures types of relationship behavior that often occur during stressful life events and that are expected to be associated with an ability to cope with employment in a stressful occupation. It includes scales measuring two nearly orthogonal dimensions, with one dimension pertaining to positive behavior and the other to negative. Firefighters completed an online questionnaire that included the Couple Resilience Inventory and measures of relationship satisfaction, exposure to traumatic events, and life wellbeing. In line with hypotheses, scales measuring positive and negative couple resilience were nearly orthogonal to each other, and distinct from a measure of relationship satisfaction, but both scales correlated positively with exposure to traumatic events, and both correlated in opposite directions with relationship satisfaction and life wellbeing. Results were consistent wit...