Helping couples achieve relationship success: A decade of progress in couple relationship education research and practice, 2010–2019

Abstract

This article systematically reviewed 34 rigorous evaluation studies of couple relationship education (CRE) programs from 2010 to 2019 that met the criteria for Level 1 well-established interventions. Significant advances include reaching more diverse and disadvantaged target populations with positive intervention effects on a wider range of outcomes beyond relationship quality, including physical and mental health, coparenting, and even child well-being, and evidence that high-risk couples often benefit the most. In addition, considerable progress has been made delivering effective online CRE, increasing services to individuals rather than to couples, and giving greater attention to youth and young adults to teach them principles and skills that may help them form healthy relationships. Ongoing challenges include expanding our understanding of program moderators and change mechanisms, attending to emerging everyday issues facing couples (e.g., healthy breaking ups, long-distance relationships) and gaining increased institutional support for CRE.

The impact of couple and family interventions

“…They also point to the impact of relationship education, which, while small in effect size, has great importance, especially for those who enter such programs with relationship difficulties. These findings converge with those in the articles about the treatment of couple distress (Doss et al, 2022) and relational education (Markman et al, 2022) in the JMFT special issue.…”

“…(Sexton et al, 2011), as well as summing those assessments across intelligible sub‐groupings of treatments (e.g., attachment‐based interventions; family psychoeducation). For the first time as well, the issue includes a consideration of research assessing relationship education (Markman et al, 2022). The special issue also includes a much‐needed consideration of the problems in the representativeness of the diversity of clients in outcome research and the importance of reducing disparities in mental health treatment in ethnically diverse populations (Dwanyen et al, 2022).…”

Reducing mental health disparities among racially and ethnically diverse populations: A review of couple and family intervention research methods (2010–2019)

“…We reviewed outcome research studies published from 2010 to 2019 in English-language journals, focusing specifically on the collection of studies included within 11 articles in this special issue. Studies were reviewed across the following mental health topics: infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH; Kaminski et al, 2022), disruptive behavior problems (Sheidow et al, 2022), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Babinski & Sibley, 2022), anxiety disorders (Goger & Weersing, 2022), depressive and bipolar disorders , suicidal ideation and behavior (Frey et al, 2022), substance use disorders (Hogue et al, 2022), traumatic event exposure (McWey, 2022), intimate partner violence and child maltreatment (Stith et al, 2022), couple relationship education (Markman et al, 2022), and couple relationship distress (Doss et al, 2022). Although physical health was also featured in the special issue (Lamson et al, 2022), we did not review physical health interventions as we considered these interventions to have important methodological differences meriting their own review.…”

Intimate Relationships and Coronary Heart Disease: Implications for Risk, Prevention, and Patient Management

“…Hence, stepped-care models where initial low-cost and often web-based self-directed therapies are provided first and followed as needed by increasingly resource-heavy approaches [ 199 ] have been adapted to include relationship interventions [ 200 ]. Relationship education programs can serve as an initial step in this format, and there is considerable evidence of their effectiveness [ 201 ]. These approaches are often self-directed, which may be more appealing to patients and partners concerned about the time, expense, and possibly the anxiety-provoking nature of traditional couple counseling.…”