title: Therapy for couples after an affair: a randomized-controlled trial.
abstract: To examine the efficacy of a couples treatment approach for promoting recovery from a recently disclosed affair, 89 couples that disclosed an affair by one of the partners in the past 6 months were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 46) or to a control group that waited about 3 months for treatment (n = 43). The couples completed self-report measures (Beck Depression Inventory, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Partnership Questionnaire) at pre- and post-treatment. Since about half of the couples dropped out for various reasons (e.g., ongoing affair, separation), we used multiple imputations to handle the missing data problem. We analyzed the dyadic data with hierarchical linear modeling in a two-level model. Significant improvements on scores of anxiety corresponded with large effect sizes for both partners. Yet significant improvements on depression scores were only found for the unfaithful partner with moderate effect size. Results suggest that the treatment can improve individual complaints, but not relationship satisfaction in a sufficient amount for both partners. Hence, future research should address how this intervention could encourage couples to maintain therapy, and how they might achieve more and sustained improvement in relationship satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany. c.kroeger@tu-bs.de
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kröger
authors.forename: Timo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Reißner
authors.forename: Ilka
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vasterling
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schütz
authors.forename: Sören
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kliem
mesh_terms: D019546:Couples Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005114:Extramarital Relations / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D057566:Self Report; D012747:Sexual Partners / Q000523:psychology*; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology; D014342:Truth Disclosure