Effectiveness of Group Training Based on Choice Theory on Marital Adjustment and Sexual Satisfaction of Couples

The first years of marriage are the most enjoyable and, at the same time, the most difficult and most risky periods of Common life of couples. Therefore, the current research was done with the aim of examining the effectiveness of Group training based on choice theory on marital adjustment and sexual satisfaction of couples.

This research is a semi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and control group. The statistical population of the research includes all couples in first year of their common life who suffered from marital problems and sexual dissatisfaction and in 2016 they went to the Basirat Clinic of counseling and assisting in Isfahan. From this population, 20 couples (20 women and 20 men) were selected by voluntary sampling method and after matching were randomly assigned to experimental (20 people) and control (20 people) groups. The subjects of experimental group received eight sessions of training based on the theory of choice, however, the control group did not receive any training. The questionnaires of Spanier's marital adjustment (1976) and Larsson's sexual satisfaction (1998) were distributed before and after educational interventions as pretest and posttest on all subjects. The findings of the research were analyzed with Multivariate Analysis of Covariance and SPSS-18 software.

The findings indicated that there is a significant difference between the mean of posttest scores of the marital adjustment (F=12.32, p<0.01) and sexual satisfaction (F=8.66, p<0.01) for experiment and control groups after adjusting the covariate effect of the pretest. However, there was no significant difference between the mean scores of marital adjustment and sexual satisfaction of male and female participants (p>.05).

It seems that group training based on choice theory, can help improve marital adjustment and sexual satisfaction of couples by informing couples of basic needs, external control psychology, and the use of seven loving habits instead of destructive habits.