Office of
Research and Creative Scholarship

2021-2022 Faculty Research Grant

Jochebed Bea Ade-Oshifogun (Nursing) and Jean Cadet (Population Health, Nutrition & Wellness).

The development of a questionnaire to measure the perception of marital disruption among Nigerian immigrants in the USA: Immigrant Marital Disruption Questionnaire (IMDQ). 

Nigeria has the largest number of African Immigrants in the rapidly increasing immigrant populations in the United States of America. The process of acculturalization is laden with challenges, including marital disruptions; however, we could not find any culturally sensitive tool available to measure marital disruption among this population. Therefore, we developed a tool to measure culturally sensitive factors leading to marital disruptions among Nigerians Immigrants in North America (NINA). A 17-item questionnaire was developed and tested on 160 subjects.
Five constructs derived from the analysis were Financial Stressors, Marital Relationship Deficits, Intercultural Conflicts, Spiritual Systems, and Others. The overall Questionnaire has a high construct validity (Cronbach’s alpha = .79). The validity of the individual constructs ranged from Cronbach’s alpha of .54 to .74. The purpose of this follow-up study is to further validate the IMDQ with a larger sample size and with a marital satisfaction tool. We will conduct an in-depth interview of subjects for relevant themes to refine the tool further.
Methods: In this mix-methods design, at least 20 participants will be approached for in-depth interviews via telephone or zoom. Data collection will continue until data saturation is achieved. IMDQ will be refined using the results of the qualitative data. The refined IMDQ and the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMS) will be administered electronically to 300 subjects recruited by snowball technique via social media and Nigerian social gatherings/organizations.
Analysis: Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and correlational tests will be utilized for the quantitative data. Content analysis of the qualitative data will be conducted for relevant themes.
Expected Results: Relevant themes to refine or affirm IMDQ will be identified. KMS will validate IMDQ. Factor analysis will reveal moderate to high Cronbach’s alpha for the refined IMDQ.