Evaluation of the effectiveness of time program (marriage enrichment) on marital satisfaction in married student couples

Although marriage is one of the most important issues in life, yet many couples do not devote time and energy to enter in this relationship. A significant proportion of married couples experience serious marital conflicts early in their common life. Since marital distress has been related to many negative long-term health and emotional consequences, prevention of these detrimental outcomes is the main priority for psychologists and the health care field specialists. One of the famous applied approaches for this problem is marriage enrichment. Marriage enrichment is an educational approach to help couples to improve their relationships and become aware of themselves and their partners, encourage empathy and intimacy, and develop effective communication and problem-solving skills. In This study the effectiveness of one of the marriage enrichment programs in Iranian couples was estimated. This was a quasi experimental research with pretest and post test and included fifteen couples in two non matched groups. We used two marital satisfaction scales – ENRICH and Dyadic Adjustment Scale - for assessment of their marital satisfaction in three steps: pre test, post test, and follow up. Eight couples (experimental group) received time program (training in marriage Enrichment) educations for ten weeks, and seven other couples (control group) didn’t receive any education. Data were analyzed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that control group didn’t have any change in marital satisfaction scales but experimental group showed a significant improvement in the post test that persisted into the follow up step (p<0.00008 for Enrich Scale and p<0.0002 for DAS Scale). The results of this study supported the beneficial effects of marriage enrichment program on marital satisfaction in our study couples.