The willingness of spouses to seek marriage and family counseling services.

Drawing upon a probability sample of 928 military couples (1,856 spouses), three clusters of variables were identified from a review of the help-seeking literature and examined for their contribution to explaining variation in the likelihood of husbands and wives seeking marriage and family counseling services given a marital or family problem: (a) demographic, (b) program-related, and (c) informal help-seeking orientation. Three of the six independent variables that were included in the analysis emerged as significant predictors of the potential use of counseling services by both husbands and wives: knowledge and prior use of services, years of formal education, and willingness to consult parents and other relatives given a major personal or family problem. Interpretations of the findings are offered for consideration, and recommendations are presented both for expanding clinical outreach efforts and for guiding further research.