Effectiveness of Couple Interventions in Marital Distress: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Title

Effectiveness of Couple Interventions in Marital Distress: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Creator

Joseph B.; Joseph V.K.; Rajan S.K.

Description

Background: Couple interventions focus on resolving relationship issues and improving partners' intimacy. Several intervention models are used on different occasions to deal with the issues. The present systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the effectiveness of such couple interventions dealing with marital distress. Methods: Using the PRISMA guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, a search was carried out to identify published articles in the areas of study. The meta-analysis investigated the effectiveness of couple interventions by comparing the post-intervention assessments of the experimental and control groups. Results: The systematic review helped to identify twelve empirical studies published within the last ten years in the following databases: ScienceDirect, EBSCO, APA PsycINFO, NCBI, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. Meta-analysis showed a statistically significant overall effect size (Cohen's d = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.56-1.14). Cochran's Q showed that there was a substantial difference between the studies. There were signs of publication bias. Conclusion: The current study revealed an overall large effect size, indicating that different couple interventions had a noticeable impact on distressed couples who received interventions as opposed to couples who did not receive any interventions. 2025 Joesph et al.

Source

Iranian Journal of Public Health, Vol-54, No. 1, pp. 112-123.

Date

2025-01-01

Publisher

Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Subject

Conflict intervention effect; Couple therapy; Hope therapy; Marital conflict resolution; Marital therapy

Coverage

Joseph B., School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST University, Bangalore, India; Joseph V.K., School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST University, Bangalore, India; Rajan S.K., School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST University, Bangalore, India

Rights

All Open Access; Gold Open Access

Relation

ISSN: 22516085

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Review

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v54i1.17581

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