Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: In recent years, divorce has become one of the widespread forms of social harm in Iran. Research shows that one of the most important reasons for filing for divorce is a decrease in marital satisfaction. Marital satisfaction becomes a key factor in maintaining the family. Also, the inability to regulate emotions causes the marriage to become aggressive arguments, and the husband and wife deal with severe problems instead of solving the problem in the conflict. Resilience is also one of the influential factors in filing for divorce in such a way that low resilience makes a person unable to bear small problems and think about divorce very quickly when faced with the issues of cohabitation. Dialectical behavior therapy is a therapeutic method whose effectiveness has been confirmed in treating many problems. This treatment method can also be used to improve marital issues. The present study aimed to determine the efficacy of dialectical behavior therapy on marital satisfaction, emotional regulation, and resilience of women applying for divorce in Tehran City, Iran.
Methods: The present research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest and follow–up design with a control group. The research sample consisted of 44 women applying for divorce who were registered in the Tasmim system. They were selected as available and randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups (22 people in each group).
The inclusion criteria were as follows: registering divorce in the Welfare Tasmim system, holding at least a Diploma, without acute personality disorder, and no addiction to opium. The exclusion criteria were as follows: absence of more than one session from intervention sessions and using influential drugs on the individual concerning psychology. The experimental group underwent dialectical behavioral therapy interventions for 8 sessions of 90 minutes based on the dialectic behavior therapy sessions of Marshall Linehan's protocol (2018), and the control group did not receive any intervention. Enrich (1998), Gratz and Romer (2004) emotional regulation, and Corner and Davidson (2003) resilience questionnaires were used to collect data. The data were analyzed using variance analysis and repeated measurement.
Results: Variance analysis with repeated measurement showed a significant difference between factors (pretest, posttest, and follow–up) related to all three variables of marital satisfaction, emotional regulation, and resilience (p<0.001). Also, there was a significant difference between the scores of the two experimental and control groups in these variables (p<0.01). In other words, dialectical behavior therapy has been effective in improving marital satisfaction, emotional regulation, and resilience of women seeking divorce. To investigate the difference between the three stages in terms of the effectiveness of the intervention, an LSD post–hoc test was used. Based on the post–hoc LSD, there is a significant difference in all three variables of marital satisfaction, emotional regulation, and resilience between the pretest and posttest, as well as between follow–up and pretest. However, there was no significant difference between the posttest and follow–up (marital satisfaction p=0.154; emotional regulation p=0.432; resilience p=0.136), so the intervention plan effectively improved both variables. Also, the effects of the interventions remained stable during the two months.
Conclusion: Dialectical behavior therapy seems beneficial in increasing marital satisfaction, improving emotional regulation, and increasing the resilience of divorce applicants. Also, dialectical behavior therapy can be considered an effective way to solve the problems of the divorce applicant.