Love in the time of COVID‐19: A systematic mapping review of empirical research on romantic relationships one year into the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic has affected nearly every area of daily life, including romantic relationships. With the pandemic still ongoing, this study reviewed the existing scholarly literature to document the status of empirical research on how COVID‐19 has affected couples during its first year. Studies were identified through searching five databases as well as sources of gray literature. Overall, 42 studies on committed romantic relationships during the first year of the pandemic were identified. The mapping process revealed four main themes: (1) relationship quality; (2) sexuality; (3) couple daily adjustment; and (4) intimate partner violence. The findings suggest that the way romantic relationships were affected by the pandemic depends on a variety of demographic, individual, and couple‐level factors. Implications include a call for both the development of evidence‐based interventions that consider the current findings and further research to continue exploring the clinical implications of future findings to promote healthy intimate relationships during the ongoing global pandemic.

摘要

COVID‐19疫情几乎影响了日常生活的每一个领域, 包括恋爱关系。由于疫情仍在持续, 本研究回顾了现有的学术文献, 以记录COVID‐19在第一年如何影响伴侣的实证研究现状。通过检索五个数据库以及灰色文献来源确定研究。总的来说, 在疫情的第一年, 确定了42项关于承诺恋爱关系的研究。梳理分析过程揭示了四个主要主题: 1) 关系质量; 2) 性行为; 3) 伴侣日常调整; 4) 亲密伴侣暴力。这些发现表明, 浪漫关系受到疫情影响的方式取决于各种人口统计学、个人和夫妻层面的因素。影响包括呼吁开发基于证据的干预措施, 考虑目前的研究结果和进一步的研究, 继续探索未来的研究结果的临床意义, 以促进正在延续中的全球疫情中的健康亲密关系。