Psychology
The Marriage Checkup: A randomized controlled trial of annual relationship health checkups
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Objective: This study assessed the efficacy of the Marriage Checkup (MC) for improving relationship health and intimacy. Method: Cohabiting married couples (N = 215,Mage women = 44.5 years, men = 47 years, 93.1% Caucasian) recruited from a northeastern U.S. metropolitan area through print and electronic media were randomly assigned to MC treatment or wait-list control. Treatment but not control couples participated in assessment and feedback visits, at the beginning of the study and again 1 year later. All couples completed 9 sets of questionnaires over 2 years. Outcome measures included the Quality of Marriage Index, the Global Distress subscale of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised, the Intimate Safety Questionnaire, and the Relational Acceptance Questionnaire. Results: A latent growth curve model indicated significant between-group differences in intimacy at every measurement point after baseline (d ranged from.20 to.55, Md =.37), significant between-group differences in womena's felt acceptance for every measurement point after baseline (d ranged from.17 to.47, Md =.34), significant between-group differences in mena's felt acceptance through the 1-year 2-week follow-up (d across follow-up ranged from.11 to.40, Md =.25), and significant between-group differences in relationship distress through 1-year 6-month follow-up (d across follow-up ranged from.11 to.39, Md =.23). Conclusions: Longitudinal analysis of the MC supports the hypothesis that the MC significantly improves intimacy, acceptance, and satisfaction. Implications for dissemination are discussed. © 2014 APA.
Publication Title
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
Publication Date
1-1-2014
Volume
82
Issue
4
First Page
592
Last Page
604
ISSN
0022-006X
DOI
10.1037/a0037097
Keywords
brief intervention, intimacy, marital satisfaction, marriage checkup, multilevel modeling
Repository Citation
Cordova, James V.; Fleming, C. J.Eubanks; Morrill, Melinda Ippolito; Hawrilenko, Matt; Sollenberger, Julia W.; Harp, Amanda G.; Gray, Tatiana D.; Darling, Ellen V.; Blair, Jonathan M.; Meade, Amy E.; and Wachs, Karen, "The Marriage Checkup: A randomized controlled trial of annual relationship health checkups" (2014). Psychology. 51.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_psychology/51
