Marriage Education and Risk Reduction for Army Families

University Of Denver (Colorado Seminary), Denver CO

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Marital distress and divorce is of great concern in the U.S., as the divorce rate for first marriages is around 40 to 45%, and marital problems are a risk factor for a variety of child and adult problems. To combat disturbing trends of marital dissolution and distress, as well as the associated problems and costs, there is increasing government support for the wide spread implementation of marriage education. Although this movement is supported by existing empirical research, we still need to know much about marital processes over time and the effects of marriage education, particularly across diverse samples and outcomes. We propose to implement a community level, controlled, longitudinal, randomized investigation of an ongoing marriage education program for Army couples delivered by Army chaplains. The intervention is an Army adaptation of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) for young married Army couples. This adaptation is entitled Building Strong and Ready Families (BSRF). BSRF is designed to target empirically identified risk and protective factors for marital conflict and distress, which are also strongly associated with a range of individual and family functioning problems. We seek to test the impact of BSRF on a range of relationship risk and protective factors, and the effects of intervening with these factors on a wide range of outcomes which have not been studied in the marriage education literature, including depression, substance abuse, parenting, and child behavior outcomes. We will also evaluate a uniquely wide range of important, yet understudied, relationship constructs. We also have access to a uniquely diverse population, one not typically reached by traditional mental health services, due to the demographic make up of the Army and the use of Army chaplains as service providers (hence, a less stigmatizing resource for prevention and counseling for many people who will not seek services from a mental health professional). Our longitudinal design will allow tests of bi-directional effects of variables such as mental health and relationship health over time, enabling us to test and refine our theoretical model of relationship risk and protective factors. Thus, the proposed research investigates underlying factors of healthy marriage, processes of marital distress and dissolution, bidirectional effects of marital conflict and individual and family functioning, and the immediate and long term effects of marital education.