Study of effectiveness of relationship enhancement on marital happiness and optimism in Iranian couples

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of relationship enhancement on improving optimism and marital happiness of couples in Isfahan. The design of this study is quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest and control group. The sample was 36 couples were randomly selected and assigned in an experimental group (20couples) and a control group (16 couples). The independent variable was relationship enhancement which was administrated in 8 sessions on the experimental group while there was no treatment for the control group. The instrument for this study was Marital Happiness Scale (MHS) and Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R). The data was analyzed by covariance analysis. The results showed that relationship enhancement has effectively led to improving of optimism and marital happiness of couples (p<0.01). The results showed significantly differences between experimental group, and control group considering the amount of marital happiness and optimism, and the efficacy of relationship enhancement has remained after a month follow up. The results showed that relationship enhancement was significantly effective on improving of optimism and marital happiness. These results may be product useful information about effectiveness of relationship enhancement on marital quality for researchers, counselors and psychotherapists.