The Effectiveness of Psychological Rehabilitation on Divorce Tendency and Marital Intimacy among Divorcing Couples

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of psychological rehabilitation on divorce propensity and marital intimacy in couples who divorce. It was a practical and semi-experimental study with a pretest, a posttest, and a follow-up with a control group. Out of 300 couples divorcing in Isfahan in the autumn of 2019, 40 couples were randomly selected and then randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The Divorce Tendency Scale (DTS) and Intimacy Scale (IS) were used to collect data. The experimental group was trained through a validated curriculum package during the ten sessions. Data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance using SPSS 24 software. The results of the repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the propensity to divorce (p<0.01) and marital intimacy (p­<0.01) of the couples in the experimental group were significantly lower and higher, respectively, than those in the control group in the posttest and follow-up phases. The results of the study confirm the effect of psychological rehabilitation training on reducing the propensity to divorce and improving marital intimacy. It is suggested that psychological rehabilitation training should be used in counseling centers for couples who are divorcing.

Keywords

• rehabilitation psychological
• divorce
• tendency to divorce
• marital intimacy