Department of Psychology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany.
Behav Res Ther. 2012 Dec;50(12):786-96. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2012.09.006. Epub 2012 Oct 6.
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.
为了检验夫妻治疗方法对促进最近披露的外遇事件中一方康复的疗效，89 对在过去 6 个月内一方披露外遇的伴侣被随机分配到治疗组（n=46）或对照组（n=43），后者等待大约 3 个月接受治疗。夫妻双方在治疗前和治疗后完成了自我报告量表（贝克抑郁量表、修订后的事件影响量表、伴侣问卷）。由于各种原因（如持续的外遇、分居），大约有一半的夫妻中途退出，因此我们使用多重插补来处理缺失数据问题。我们使用两级模型中的分层线性建模分析了对偶数据。对于双方来说，焦虑得分的显著改善对应着较大的效应量。然而，只有不忠实的伴侣在抑郁得分上有显著改善，其效应量为中等。研究结果表明，这种治疗方法可以改善个人的抱怨，但不能使双方的关系满意度得到足够的提高。因此，未来的研究应该探讨这种干预措施如何鼓励夫妻维持治疗，以及他们如何在关系满意度方面取得更多和持续的改善。
