Investigating the Effect of Communication Skills Training for Married Women on Couples’ Intimacy and Quality of Life

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of communication skills education for married women on couples’ intimacy and quality of life. The subjects of this study were married female students enrolled in the spring semester of 2011 at the Applied Sciences and Technology University (Tourism Unit) of Kerman in Iran, along with their husbands. Of the students who expressed interest in taking part in this study, 30 subjects were selected and randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. Subjects in the experimental group participated in a 12-session training for the improvement of communication skills in the context of marriage and family therapy. Comparison of these two groups indicated that communication skills training for married women can increase their intimacy and quality of life in their relationships with their husbands ( p < .01). This study further revealed that this sort of training programs could also increase the quality of life of the husbands in their relationships with their wives ( p < .01).

Socio-Demographic Factors Predicting Marital Intimacy in a Sample of Iranian Couples: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The results of this study are consistent with the findings of other studies (18,19,44). Given the importance of communication and the method for the transfer of a message, communication skill enables couples to convey their messages more clearly and evade behaviors that may lead to the reduction of marital intimacy and satisfaction such as contempt, criticism, blame, and sarcasm (8).…”

“…Intimacy is defined as the closeness, similarity and romantic or emotional personal relationship, which requires a deep understanding and perception of the other person for expressing thoughts and feelings (4). Marital intimacy in the couple's relationship leads to the enhancement of marital compatibility (5), marital satisfaction (6,7), increase of the quality of marital life (8), feeling of welfare (9), and a decrease of daily stress (10). On the other hand, the lack of intimacy in young couples is one of the predictors of divorce in old age (11).…”

A Review of Marital Intimacy-Enhancing Interventions among Married Individuals

“…Therapists have described on various aspects that may negatively influence marital stability such as communication difficulty, unrealistic expectations from marriage and the spouse, lack of intimacy, and lack of expressing affection ( Motavali, Ozgoli, Bakhtiari, & Alavimajd, 2010 ; Shahrestany, Doustkam, Rahbarda, & Mashhadi, 2013 ). Taking the fact for the granted that in many societies today family is the prominent source of comfort for people and taking the fact that in the modern society the family is faced with the challenges, the most important of which is the loss of marital intimacy, into account, an interventional program is helpful to prevent these problems and heighten intimacy ( Farbod, Ghamari, & Majd, 2014 ). To enhance () intimacy in couples, educational approaches may support () ( Oulia, Fatehizadeh, & Bahrami, 2006 ).…”

The effectiveness of intimacy training with cognitive-behavioral approach on couples’ life quality and happiness

“…Studies on quality of life have shown that quality of life is related to marital intimacy (15,16). Barzegar and Samani (17) and the training of the communication skills program (18,19,20,21,22,23); and training on the program for the enrichment of relations (24,25,26) on quality of life which has had an effect on the quality of life of individuals and has led to an improvement in the quality of life of individuals.…”