Effects of Group Reality Therapy Based on Choice Theory on Responsibility in Married Women

Family is among the most fundamental units of society and shapes the personality of its members. What highly matters in marriage is marital satisfaction. A characteristic of reducing marital satisfaction and enhancing marital conflicts is responsibility–concerned issues. Considering the growing rate of divorce, using psychological methods to increase couples’ responsibility is necessary. Novel approaches to marital counseling and increased accountability have been proposed; the most important approach of which is reality therapy. Its’ significance in Iranian society is attributed to specific sociocultural and welfare conditions. This theory can be summarized as follows: individuals are responsible for their choices, decisions, goals, and in a word, their happiness. The present study intended to explore the effects of group reality therapy based on choice theory on responsibility in married women.

This was an applied and quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest–follow–up and a control group design. The study population included married women who lived in Tehran City, Iran, in 2018. To select the study subjects, a convenience sampling method was applied. The required sample size, according to the conditions of access to the subjects, was estimated as 30 individuals (n=15/control & test group). The study participants were matched by educational level. The inclusion criteria of the research were as follows: willingness to participating in the project; no specific history of mental illnesses; participating in all meetings, and not being >10 minutes late for the meetings. The exclusion criteria of the study included simultaneous participation in other treatment programs; the presence of severe physical illnesses preventing the subjects from attending the meetings; dissatisfaction with the continuation of cooperation; not completing the research questionnaire; having psychiatric illnesses and receiving pharmacotherapy during the sessions. The research instruments implemented in this research consisted of a structured diagnostic interview and California Psychological Inventory (CPI) (Gough, 1987) for measuring responsibility. The group reality therapy protocol was performed in 8 two–hour sessions. In this study, descriptive statistics (e.g., mean & standard deviation) and inferential statistics, including repeated–measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS. The significance level for all tests was considered as 0.05.

The present study findings indicated that the time factor was significant in the 3 stages of pretest, posttest, and follow–up (p<0.001). The obtained data revealed that the responsibility scores of the investigated individuals in the 3 stages were significantly different from each other. Furthermore, the effect of the group was significant (F=128.53, p<0.001); accordingly, there was a significant difference between the level of responsibility in the study groups during the measurement periods.

According to the current research findings, group reality therapy based on choice theory impacted married women's responsibility; therefore, this approach can be used as an effective therapeutic intervention in this group.