Developing a Psycho-Educational Package of Marital Skills Based on an Eclectic Approach and Determining Its Effectiveness in Improving Communication Patterns and Conflict Resolution Styles of Conflicting Couples

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Counseling, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran.

2 Corresponding Author, Department of Counseling, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran.

Abstract

Objective: The present study aimed to develop and validate a psycho-educational package of marital skills based on eclecticism, in order to improve communication patterns and conflict resolution styles of conflicting couples.
Method: The present study was a mixed-methodology (quantitative-qualitative) study. In the qualitative part, the Delphi method was used, and the population in this part included all experts in the field of marriage and family counseling, 30 of whom were selected by the judgmental sampling to enter the study. The quantitative part of the study was conducted using a quasi-experimental method with a pretest-posttest design with a control group and a two-month follow-up phase. The population in this part included all couples referring to Zanjan counseling centers, 50 couples with high scores on Christensen & Sullaway's (1984) Communication Patterns Questionnaire and Rahim's (1983) Conflict Resolution styles Questionnaire were selected by the convenient sampling, and randomly assigned to two groups of 25 people (experimental group and control group), and the experimental group was trained in eight two-hour sessions based on the instructions of the developed psycho-educational package. The data were analyzed qualitatively using the Kendall coefficient of agreement and quantitatively using the analysis of covariance test.
Results: The qualitative findings showed that the developed psycho-educational package had good content validity and the expert working group reached a final and strong agreement in the fourth Delphi round. In the quantitative section, the findings showed that the developed package was able to improve the communication patterns and conflict resolution styles of conflicting couples in the experimental group compared to the control group (P<0.05). This difference was also significant in the two-month follow-up phase.
Conclusions: The results of the study showed that a psycho-educational package of marital skills based on an eclectic approach can be effective in improving communication patterns and conflict resolution styles of conflicting couples.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

 
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