THE EFFECT OF COUNSELING BASED ON COGNITIVEBEHAVIORAL APPROACH ON THE MARITAL SATISFACTION OF COUPLES WHO REFFERED TO THE SELECTED HEALTHY CENTERS OF URMIA, 2015

Marital satisfaction is a very important and complicated aspect of a marital
relationship. Due to midwives awareness of issues related to marital relationship and constant contact
of them with the society that can act as professional family advisers, this study done to determine the
effect of counseling based on cognitive-behavioral approach on marital satisfaction.
Materials & Methods: This is apre-post semiexperimental study by control group. After completion the
ENRICH marital satisfaction questionnaire, 60 couples by the inclusion criteria and score of 30-60
simply selected from 3 randomly selected healthy centers (20 couples from each center). Then the
couples devided to two intervention and control groups randomly. The intervention done for 5
counseling sessions of 2 hours with one week intervals. No intervention done in the control group.After
one month passed the last counseling session, the questionnaire completed by the couples again.
Collected datas analyzed by use SPSS-22.
Results: After intervention, the ANCOVA analaysis of scores by deletion of pre-influence showed
significant difference in total matital satisfaction in men and women of both of control and intervention
groups (p<0.001). Accordinarry to independent sample T-test, mean scores of other aspects of marital
satisfaction such as contractual answer in men and women (p<0.001), personal topics in men and women
(p<0.001), financial management in men (p=0.002) and women (p<0.001), free times actions in
men(p=0.005) and women (p<0.001), sexual relationship in men and women (p<0.001), parenting in
men (p=0.002) and women (p<0.001), relatives and friends just in women (p<0.001), roles of man and
woman equality in men and women (p<0.001) and religious orientation in men and women (p<0.001)
of intervention groups was significant too.
Conclusions: Marital counseling based on cognitive-behavioral approach has a great influence on
marital satisfaction of couples, especially on couples communication, conflict-solving skills and sexual
relationship. So it should be done in the healthy centers by trained personels such as masters of ejucated
of midwifery counseling