Sexual Satisfaction and its Relation to Marital Happiness in Iranians

Background: marital satisfaction is affected by many factors. satisfaction with one's sexual life tends to be a pivotal factorin marital satisfaction. in iran, socio-cultural and political limitations are obstacles for sexuality-related studies, therefore,insufficient information is available in the area. unique in its own, in this paper we report how sexual relationships relate tomarital satisfaction among iranians.methods: this descriptive-correlation study was conducted in 2007 in tehran, continuous sampling was used to recruit 292married men, and women aged 19-58 yr from selected hospitals in tehran while visiting their hospitalized relatives. sometimesthe participants were couple too. three questionnaires were used for data collection. the data were analyzed using descriptiveand inferential statistics (x2، fisher and anova) with spss.results: marital satisfaction significantly relates to sexual satisfaction (p= 0/00). there was also a significant relation betweensexual satisfaction and the following variables: age difference of couples (p= 0.04), length of marital life (p= 0.05),and a drug abused participant (p= 0.007). of these variables, only the age difference of couples significantly relates to maritalsatisfaction (0.00).conclusion: findings suggest that sexual satisfaction plays a seminal role in marital satisfaction of iranians. therefore, weneed to develop culturally appropriate practical strategies to improve iranian couples’ awareness in sexuality issues as wellas training them in communication skills through their sexual encounters.