Assignment 2
In the past decade, there has been an increase in distress, emotional turmoil, and marital issues among couples across the globe. Most couples require family planning, care, and management services to cope with stress and disputes. There has been significant amount of research on interventions to manage disputes and marital distress among couples. However, majority of the couples remain untreated and continue to suffer from marital distress. The motivational health model was perceived to be an exceptional and effective strategy in assessing married couples and their well-being. In this paper, a team of researchers statistically assessed the impact of a new model, Marriage Checkup (MC) and its impact on marital health among coupes across the globe. This is the largest study that provides insights on the use of MC in distressed couples (Morrill 2011).
Methods and statistical analysis
The researchers used flyers, print media, internet, and word of mouth to recruit the patients. A total of 443 couples was recruited in the study. The average age of coupes was 45.7 years (SD = 11.2). The average number of married years was 5.1 years (SD = 12.0). Nearly 75% of couples who seek treatment for counselling and marital health were employed while 24% were self-employed. The average household income of couples who actively participated in the study was between $75,000 to $99,000. Nearly 94% of the couples were White followed by 2.5% of Black and Asian couples respectively. Nearly 88% of the couples had graduate-level education while 43% had bachelor’s degree education (Morrill 2011).
Th questionnaires utilized for the survey were returned to the respondents while the relationship data/information was gathered using the Marital Satisfaction Inventory – Revised, Global Distress Scale (MSI-R GDS; Snyder, 1997). The researchers reported that the Cronbach’s alpha for the GDS was 0.93. The researchers used T-scores to evaluate the level of distress among couples, wherein the mean T-scores were categorized as follows: (a) Low stress couples had scores between 39 to 49, moderate distressed couples had scores between 50 to 59, and severe distressed couples had mean T-scores of 60 and above. The researchers utilized the original validation study of the MSI-R published in 1997 to assess the scores of the community and clinical samples based on their MSI-R GDS scores (Morrill 2011).
The researchers suggested 4 hypotheses associated with the use of MC among married couples around the globe which are as follows: (a) The MC may attract married couples who may not necessarily express or perceive their relationships to be distressed (b) The MC may attract couples who seek marital help while they are distressed. However, the couples could seek for MC as an alternative to traditional couple therapy (c) Couples who seek assistance and resolution to their marital help beyond that of traditional therapy may use or approach MC. However, such couples may seek a broader range of relationship functioning and (d) Couples with known distress and marital imbalance would be keen to seeking traditional therapy as well as the new concept of MC. However, such couples would opt for a therapy that has limited barriers and customized to their lifestyle and perseverance (Morrill 2011).
The MC is based on the ideologies of motivational interviewing (MI) which has a long history of successfully helping in resolving marital health and distress. In a recent study, a team of experts proved that MI is a conventional but effective intervention to promote behavioural change and reduce aggression between partners (Woodin, Sotskova, & O’Leary 2012). The researchers based on their hypotheses and results are convinced that the MC can be used as an effective and alternative therapy to help resolve distress among married couples. The researchers also state that there is mixed opinion (statistically significant) results for all 4 hypotheses which relates to need for further analysis. However, the MC can be considered to improve relationship outcomes, improvement in functioning of marital health domain, and reduce mental health issues among married couples (Morrill 2011).
References
Morrill, M. (2011). The Marriage Checkup: Increasing Access to Marital Health Care. Family
Process, 50(4), 471–485.
Woodin, E. M., Sotskova, A., & O’Leary, K. D. (2012). Do Motivational Interviewing
Behaviors Predict Reductions in Partner Aggression for Men and Women? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 50(1), 79–84.
