An Intervention for Facilitating the Transition Period from Being Couples to Being Parents

With the purpose of testing the hypothesis of the effectiveness of a psychoeducational intervention and using an experimental design, 46 newly childbearing couples, admitted to Sarem hospital in Tehran, received an intervention for facilitating the transition period from being couples to being parents. The data collected by a researcher-made questionnaire and were entered to repeated measures ANOVA and regression analysis. In the experimental group, three months after the intervention compared to the control group and pretest, the men`s pleasant feelings during conflict increased, the men`s unpleasant feelings during conflict decreased, and the insult of men and women to each other was less. The amount of increase in men`s pleasant feelings at three months after the intervention, could predict the increase in women's pleasant feelings in one year after the intervention, and the amount of decrease in men`s unpleasant feelings at three months after the intervention, could predict the decrease in women's unpleasant feelings at one year after the intervention. Thus, firstly, the improvement after intervention can become apparent gradually (rather than immediately), secondly, men improve sooner than women, and thirdly, early improvements predict later ones.