The effect of couple therapy with well-being therapy method on depression, marital life quality, optimism and social well-being in patients with cardiovascular disease

This study was conducted to examine the effect of couple therapy with well-being therapy method on depression, marital life quality, optimism and social well-being in patients with cardiovascular disease.

Patients with cardiovascular disease experience many problems in their marital life and health, and one of the effective methods for improving the characteristics of marital life and their health is possibly the couple therapy with well-being therapy method.

This study was a semi-experimental pretest- posttest study with control group. The study population was patients with cardiovascular disease referred to Javad Al-Aeme Cardiovascular Hospital in Mashhad city, Iran, in 2021. Thirty patients and their couples were recruited by purposive sampling method based on inclusion criteria and allocated to experimental (n=15 couples) and control (n=15 couples) group by simple random sampling. The experimental group received 8 sessions of 90-minute duration (two sessions per week) couple therapy with well-being therapy method and during this period the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were collected through the self-reported questionnaires of depression, marital life quality, optimism and social well-being and analyzed by Chi-square, independent t-test and multivariate analysis of covariance in SPSS-19 software.

The findings showed that the experimental and control groups were not significantly different in terms of education, gender, age and duration of cardiovascular disease. Before intervention, there was no statistically significant difference between groups in terms of the mean scores of depression, marital life quality, optimism and social well-being, but after intervention, a statistically significant difference was groups between experimental and control group in the mean scores of all four variables (P≤0.0001). The couple therapy with well-being therapy method led to reduced depression (F=192.046, P≤0.0001) and increased marital life quality (F=329.770, P≤0.0001), optimism (F=230.267, P≤0.0001) and social well-being (F=359.558, P≤0.0001) in patients with cardiovascular disease.

The results of this study indicated the effect of couple therapy with well-being therapy method on reducing depression and increasing marital life quality, optimism and social well-being in patients with cardiovascular disease. Health professionals and therapists can use this method to improve the characteristics of marital life and those related to health.