<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Articles JournalTitle="Iranian Journal of Public Health">
  <Article>
    <Journal>
      <PublisherName>Tehran University of Medical Sciences</PublisherName>
      <JournalTitle>Iranian Journal of Public Health</JournalTitle>
      <Issn>2251-6085</Issn>
      <Volume>54</Volume>
      <Issue>1</Issue>
      <PubDate PubStatus="epublish">
        <Year>2025</Year>
        <Month>01</Month>
        <Day>05</Day>
      </PubDate>
    </Journal>
    <title locale="en_US">Effectiveness of Couple Interventions in Marital Distress: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis</title>
    <FirstPage>112</FirstPage>
    <LastPage>123</LastPage>
    <AuthorList>
      <Author>
        <FirstName>Binu</FirstName>
        <LastName>Joseph</LastName>
        <affiliation locale="en_US">School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST University, Bangalore, India</affiliation>
      </Author>
      <Author>
        <FirstName>Varghese</FirstName>
        <LastName>Joseph</LastName>
        <affiliation locale="en_US">School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST University, Bangalore, India</affiliation>
      </Author>
      <Author>
        <FirstName>Santhosh</FirstName>
        <LastName>Rajan</LastName>
        <affiliation locale="en_US">School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST University, Bangalore, India</affiliation>
      </Author>
    </AuthorList>
    <History>
      <PubDate PubStatus="received">
        <Year>2023</Year>
        <Month>10</Month>
        <Day>27</Day>
      </PubDate>
      <PubDate PubStatus="accepted">
        <Year>2024</Year>
        <Month>08</Month>
        <Day>11</Day>
      </PubDate>
    </History>
    <abstract locale="en_US">Background: Couple interventions focus on resolving relationship issues and improving partners' intimacy. Several intervention models are used on different occasions to deal with the issues. The present systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the effectiveness of such couple interventions dealing with marital distress.
Methods: Using the PRISMA guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, a search was carried out to identify published articles in the areas of study. The meta-analysis investigated the effectiveness of couple interventions by comparing the post-intervention assessments of the experimental and control groups.
Results: The systematic review helped to identify twelve empirical studies published within the last ten years in the following databases: ScienceDirect, EBSCO, APA PsycINFO, NCBI, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. Meta-analysis showed a statistically significant overall effect size (Cohen's d = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.56 - 1.14). Cochran's Q showed that there was a substantial difference between the studies. There were signs of publication bias.
Conclusion: The current study revealed an overall large effect size, indicating that different couple interventions had a noticeable impact on distressed couples who received interventions as opposed to couples who did not receive any interventions.</abstract>
    <web_url>https://ijph.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijph/article/view/33587</web_url>
    <pdf_url>https://ijph.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijph/article/download/33587/8442</pdf_url>
  </Article>
</Articles>
