The Effectiveness of Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy on the Sexual Intimacy and Marital Burnout of the Couples with Marital Conflicts

Marital conflicts are inevitable, though they are considerably reduced through training and development of social skills. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of integrative behavioral couple therapy on the sexual intimacy and marital burnout of the couples with marital conflicts. 

This was a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study with a control group and was applied in terms of purpose. The statistical population consisted of all couples with marital conflict in Sanandaj City (30 couples) from March 21 to September 22, 2019, that were divided into two experimental and control groups, each of 15. Batlanichr('39')s sexual intimacy questionnaire and Pinezchr('39') marital burnout questionnaire as the research instruments were completed by the subjects before and after the intervention. The reliability of the questionnaires was assessed by the Cronbachchr('39')s alpha as 0.88. The experimental group was provided with ten 90-min sessions of integrative behavioral couple therapy training, one session per week for two months; however, the control group received no intervention. Data were analyzed by MANCOVA and one-way MANCOVA.

Data analysis showed that integrative behavioral couple therapy significantly improved sexual intimacy and reduced marital burnout of couples (p <0.001).

Integrative behavioral couple therapy as an effective intervention increased sexual intimacy and reduced marital burnout of couples.