Strengthening Marriages and Preventing Divorce: New Directions in Prevention Research

Abstract

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Can skills training prevent relationship problems in at-risk couples? Four-year effects of a behavioral relationship education program.

“…The current findings replicate and extend earlier studies showing that couples improve their communication with skills-based relationship education (e.g., Hahlweg et al, 1998;Ridley et al, 1982;Stanley et al, 1995). Also, our findings replicate previous research indicating that skill-based relationship education is associated with reductions in communication negativity.…”

“…These changes in communication are maintained for months or even years after completion of the education program (Hahlweg et al, 1998;Ridley et al, 1982;Stanley, Markman, St. Peters, & Leber, 1995).…”

“…The content of the program is detailed in Table 1. In essence, Self-PREP covers areas similar to those covered by PREP (Stanley et al, 1995) but includes an additional focus on self-regulation. Partners are helped to self-evaluate their behavior across a range of domains of relationship interaction, to select goals for self-change, and to implement and evaluate their self-change efforts.…”

“…Hence, PREP, with its focus on communication and conflict management, could be effective for prevention of problems in these highrisk couples. An implicit assumption of skills-focused programs such as PREP is that acquired relationship skills are maintained over long periods of time, although there is some evidence that training effects attenuate over 5 to 7 years (Stanley et al, 1995). The use of self-regulation strategies has been recommended to assist long-term maintenance of adaptive relationship behaviors in both the marital (Halford, Sanders, & Behrens, 1994) and family (Sanders, 1998;Sanders & Glynn, 1981) intervention fields.…”

The Prevention of Relationship Distress for Couples at Risk: A Controlled Evaluation with Nine-Month and Two-Year Follow-Ups

“…At both follow-ups, participation in the preventive intervention did not appear to have a protective influence on decline in relationship functioning forpersons whose parents divorced and their partners. Leber, 1995). At 11/2-and 3-year followups, intervention couples were found to show less decline in relationship satisfaction compared to controls, who declined significantly more.…”