Effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy in reduction of marital violence and improvement of family functioning functioning : a quasi-experimental study

Abstract EN

Background: The rise in marital violence has led to growing concern about people with this condition.

Emotion-focused Therapy (EFT) is one of the well-established treatments that consider both family interaction and emotion in the creation of secure attachment.

Objectives: This studyaimedto evaluate the effectiveness of EFT in marital violence reductionandfamily functioning improvement.

Methods: This study was conducted in 2018-2019 among married women with family problems referring to counseling centers in Tehran, Iran.

We randomly allocated 32 women with a mean marriage age of 24.27 6.18 years to EFT and control groups.

Marital violence and family functioning were measured before and after EFT using a domestic violence questionnaire and the family assessment device scale constructed based on the McMaster Model of Family Functioning (MMFF).

Emotion-focused group therapy was conducted in the intervention group for eight 90-min sessions.

The control group was exposed to no intervention.

The Kolmogorov- Smirnov test was utilized to evaluate the distribution of variables.

We used the independent t-test, chi-square test, Friedman test, Mann-Whitney test, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and MANCOVA for data analysis.

Results: Marital violence decreased significantly after the intervention (-11.25 vs.

-1.62, P < 0.001).

Moreover, family functioning improved after the intervention (6.25 vs.

-1.69, P = 0.001) in the EFT group compared to the control group.

Conclusions: The EFT was an effective intervention in this study.

The findings implicate the significance of essential interventions for marital violence reduction and family functioning improvement.