1- Department of Psychology, Ardabil Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil, Iran.
Abstract: (508 Views)
Background and Objective: Promoting couple intimacy by teaching life skills is one of the ways that couples can manage their feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Life skills increase couples' adaptation to the environment and its challenges, and enable them to deal effectively with family, work, and social environmental issues. Life skills training enables people to turn their knowledge, values, attitudes and skills into actual tools. According to previous research, there are several psychological interventions on marital intimacy. In this regard, this study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of life skills training on the subscales of marital intimacy of married women.
Method: This research is applied in terms of purpose and causal-analytical in terms of data collection and processing. Also, in terms of research method, it is quasi-experimental and pre-test-post-test with a control group. This research is an experimental study with pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population includes married women who have referred to counseling centers in Marand due to marital problems. Among the clients, 30 people who had less marital satisfaction based on the implementation of the Bagarozi Intimacy Needs Survey (conducted by the facilitator) were selected by available sampling method and randomly placed in two different groups. Individuals also experienced two stages of pre-test and post-test and were evaluated with questionnaires and related tools. After selecting the sample group and assigning it to the experimental and control groups, first in both groups, a questionnaire to assess the intimacy needs of Bagaruzi (Form 41 questions) was done by observing health protocols and then life skills training based on the relevant protocol only in the group. The test was administered and then the Bagarozi Intimacy Needs Assessment Questionnaire (Form 41 questions) was administered as a post-test in accordance with health protocols in two groups. It should be noted that life skills training was not performed in the control group. The study population of married women referred to counseling centers in Marand city to solve marital problems in 2021 using the available sampling method, 30 people Married women were selected from the study population and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received life skills training (in 8 sessions of 60 minutes per week) and no intervention was performed for the control group. To collect data, a questionnaire was used to assess the intimacy needs of Bagarozi. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance.
Results: The results of data analysis showed that life skills training in the post-test phase significantly increased the mean sub-scores of the marital intimacy components of married women in the experimental group (emotional intimacy, psychological intimacy, rational intimacy, physical intimacy, and physical intimacy. Social intimacy) was compared to the control group and also there was a significant difference in the total post-test intimacy index between the experimental and control groups (p <0.05)..
Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, life skills training is effective on the marital intimacy of married women. Therefore, it can be concluded that life skills training program can be used as a suitable program to increase marital satisfaction of couples.