Comparing the effectiveness of solution-focused and emotion-focused couples therapy on improving couples' marital quality

Abstract

Introduction: The decline of marital quality between couples and the occurrence of burnout can bring about potentially harmful and dangerous effects and consequences for couples and children. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of solution–focused couple therapy and emotion –focused couple therapy on improving marital quality of couples.

Methods: This semi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest posttest design with control group and follow-up 2 month. The statistical population of this study included all couples refer to Ganj Mehr Babol counseling center in year 2025, using a purposive sampling method, 30 couple were selected and randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group (each group of 10 couples). The experimental groups underwent emotion-focused couple therapy (10 sessions 90 minutes) and group solution–focused couple therapy (8 sessions 90 minutes), but the control group received no training and remained in the waiting list. To collect data Marital quality of Busby et al (1995) questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed by MANCOVA Analysis in SPSS-24 software.

Results: The results showed that the solution-focused couple therapy and emotion-focused couple therapy intervention groups had higher averages in all dimensions of marital quality compared to the control group (p<0.05). The results also showed that only in the post-test in the consensus subscale, the average of the solution-focused group was significantly higher than the emotion-focused group (p<0.05); but no significant difference was observed in the follow-up phase. Also, in other subscales of marital quality, namely the satisfaction and cohesion subscales, no significant difference was observed in the post-test and follow-up phases.

Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that both couple therapy approaches can be used to improve the marital quality of couples and think of divorce.