A Comparison of the Impact of Behavioral-Communicational, Islam-Oriented Spiritual-Religious and Integrative Group Therapies on the Positive Emotions

This study was aimed at comparing the impact of behavioral-communicational, Islam-oriented spiritual-religious and integrated group therapies on the positive emotions of women with marital boredom experience. This is a quasi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design and a control group, and its statistical population included all the married women who had referred to the clinics and counseling centers in Tabriz, Iran in the winter and spring of 2017-2018 to receive specialized assistance on their familial and marital problems. After the administration of the marital boredom questionnaire, a sample of 48 women was selected from among the eligible individuals in the initial screening stage who had received higher than average scores using the purposive sampling method. Then they were put in 3 experimental groups and 1 control group. The experimental groups underwent separate interventions in eight sessions, and the control group was placed on a waiting list. The data collection instruments included the Marital Boredom Scale and the Positive Emotions Questionnaire. One-way analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. The results of analysis of covariance showed a significant difference between the mean scores of the compared groups in positive emotions variable in the post-test stage (p < 0.05). Overall, the results revealed that integrative group therapy has greater effect on positive emotions towards husbands than behavioral-communicational and Islam-oriented spiritual-religious group therapies.