the study of the effectivness of relationship enhancement on marital coping strategies

aim and background: relationship enhancement is one of the life skill training programs and it could effect on couples coping styles with life tensions. this study aimed to investigate the effect of relationship enhancement on improving marital coping strategies of couples in isfahan. method and materials: the design of this study was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest and control groups. the population was the couples who referred themselves to in order to conduct this study, 24 couples were randomly selected from the couples who were volunteer to take place in the research to nervous and psychiatry center in 2008. they lives 2 years with together at least and aren’t in divorce stage then they randomly assigned in two experimental (13 couples) and control groups (11 couples). relationship enhancement was administrated in 8 sessions for the experimental group. the data of the marital coping inventory (mci) was analyzed by covariance analysis. findings: the result showed that relationship enhancement effectively led to decrease the marital conflict, introspective self-blame, and self-interest, marital avoidance strategies and to increase the positive approach strategy. the result of follow up after a month showed that there was differences between experimental and control groups considering the scores of marital coping strategies and its dimensions (p< 0.01). the efficacy of relationship enhancement had remained after a month. conclusions: results provided useful information for counselors and psychotherapists about relationship enhancement program and marital coping strategies and the ways of manipulation of these strategies. relationship enhancement (re) may be implicated for improving of marital coping strategies and decreasing marital conflict in couple therapy.