Investigating the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on sexual satisfaction, marital conflicts, and feelings of commitment in couples with marital conflicts referring to psychological centers

Determining the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on sexual satisfaction, marital conflicts, and feelings of commitment in couples with marital conflicts

A controlled clinical trial with parallel groups, single-blind, randomized, on 30 couples with marital conflicts.

Among the people who participated in the pre-test phase, 30 people who scored higher in marital conflicts will be selected and randomly placed in two experimental groups (15 people) and control groups (15 people).

Inclusion criteria: Being literate, being married, having marital conflict, consenting to participate in the study. Exclusion criteria: Presence of severe domestic violence, severe psychiatric disorders, active substance abuse or addiction.

Intervention group: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) will be implemented in a group setting in 8 90-minute sessions (one session per week). The content of the sessions is designed based on the standard ACT protocol and includes six components (acceptance, cognitive dissonance, connection to the present moment, self as context, values, and committed action). Control group: This group will be placed on a waiting list and will not receive any intervention until the end of the study, but after the end of the study, they will have access to treatment programs if they wish.

Sexual satisfaction, marital conflicts, and couples' sense of commitment.

In this study, the unit of randomization was each couple. The random sequence was generated using R software (version 4.3.1) and using the variable-size filled blocks (4 and 6) method to maintain balance between groups. The randomization tool was the generated sequence list, which was placed in opaque, numbered sealed envelopes. To ensure allocation concealment, the process of opening the envelopes was performed by an independent expert who was not involved in the screening and intervention process. After the final registration of each couple, he opened the relevant envelope and announced the group (experimental or control) based on the assigned number. This method prevents sequence prediction and bias in allocation.

In this study, to maintain single-blinding, therapists and researchers will not be aware of the couples' allocation status to the control or experimental group, but couples will be aware of their group. This helps reduce bias in data collection and analysis and prevents therapist or researcher expectations from influencing the results.