Comparison of the Effectiveness of Combined Behavioral and Emotion-Oriented Couple Therapy on Health (Infertility Self-Efficacy Component) of Infertile Couples

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of integrated behavioral couple therapy and emotional couple therapy on health (infertility self-efficacy component) of infertile couples in Ahvaz within the framework of a complementary experimental design with multiple baseline design.

The statistical population of the study consisted of all infertile couples referred to Ahvaz infertility centers in 1398 in 498 families, which were selected by purposive non-random sampling method and selected in two groups (3 couples under combined behavioral therapy and 3 couples under Emotional couple therapy) were replaced by simple randomization. Subjects completed the Infertility Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (Cousinio, 2006). Infertile couples in the experimental group underwent the combined behavioral couple therapy intervention of Jacobsen and Christensen (1998) in 12 sessions of 120 minutes in 5 weeks and emotional couple therapy of Greenberger and Johnson (1988) in 10 sessions of 90 minutes in 4 weeks. Then, the effectiveness of the treatments was assessed using observation and repetition of infertility self-efficacy questionnaires. The research data were analyzed using graph analysis, reliable change index (RCI) and significance using the recovery percentage formula.

The results showed that integrated behavioral couple therapy and emotional couple therapy increased the health (infertility self-efficacy component) of infertile couples.

According to the findings, it can be concluded that both integrated behavioral couple therapy approaches and emotional couple therapy have improved health (infertility self-efficacy component) in infertile couples, although no difference can be found in their effects.