The Effectiveness of Integrated Couple Counseling Package on Tendency to Internet Pornography Use: an Experimental Study without Control with the Participation of Three Married Men

Nowadays, with the expanding Internet access and increasing prevalence of pornographic products consumption among different segments of the society, dealing with pornography use and its adverse personal and social consequences has drawn the attention of community health professionals. The objective of the experimental study was to determine the effectiveness of the integrated couple counseling package on tendency to internet pornography among three married men.

This study was an intervention without control that was considered as a pilot study. Participants included three men with high daily use of pornography and their wives who were selected by purposeful sampling among couples referred to counseling centers in districts 3 and 5 of Isfahan from January to March 2019. The intervention included 14 therapy sessions based on integration of emotion regulation strategies and techniques and sexual teaching. Men’s tendency to internet pornography use was measure by the Pornography Craving Questionnaire before intervention (3-5 times), during Intervention (4 times), and follow up (3 times). Analysis was conducted by descriptive statistics and visual analysis.

The mean (SD) score of tendency to internet pornography of participant number 1 before intervention was 76.3 (0.58) that during intervention phase decreased to 50.2 (18.5) and at follow up phase to 25 (1). The mean (SD) score of tendency to internet pornography of participant number 2 before intervention was 70 (1.6) that during intervention phase decreased to 47.2 (13.7) and at follow up phase to 28.6 (1.1). The mean (SD) score of tendency to internet pornography of participant number 3 before intervention was 74.2 (0.84) that during intervention phase decreased to 50.7 (16.8) and at follow up phase to 25.33 (0.58). The Percentage of Non-Overlapping Data (PND) indicated that the intervention was effective with 100% confidence for all three participants.

The study showed that the integrated couple counseling package reduced the tendency to internet pornography among married men.