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Fathi A, Alipour A, Malekirad A. Comparison of the Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy and Gottman Couple Therapy on Marital burnout and Depression in Infertile Couples. J Arak Uni Med Sci 2023; 26 (2) :35-44
URL: http://jams.arakmu.ac.ir/article-1-7570-en.html

Introduction: Infertility is one of the bitter events of married life that has various psychological consequences. On the other hand, there are different treatments to reduce its psychological effects. The purpose of this research was to compare the effectiveness of emotion-focused couple therapy and Gottman couple therapy on marital burnout and depression in infertile couples.
Methods: The present research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of this research included infertile couples of Arak city in 1400, of which 54 couples were selected using available sampling method and 18 couples were randomly assigned in three groups (two experimental groups and one control group). The experimental intervention groups received emotion-focused couple therapy (10 sessions of 90 minutes) and Gottman couple therapy (10 sessions of 90 minutes), and the control group did not receive any intervention. After two months, the follow-up phase was done. In order to collect data, Beck's (1967) depression questionnaire and Pines' (1966) marital burnout questionnaire were used, and the data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and SPSS version 26 software. This research is approved by the ethics committee with the code IR.IAU.B.REC.1400.026. Also, the principles of confidentiality, written informed consent and destruction of participants' information have been observed.
Results: The results showed that Gottman couple therapy and emotion-focused couple therapy reduce couples' depression (2 = 0.265, P = 0.001, F = 18.94) and marital burnout (2 = 0.348, P = 0.001, F = 27.99) has been effective. In addition, emotion-focused couple therapy has been more effective in reducing couples' depression (p=0.033) and marital burnout (P=0.001) than Gottman's couple therapy.
Conclusions: According to the results of the research, it can be said that emotion-focused couple therapy is more effective than Gottman's couple therapy in reducing couples' depression and marital exhaustion. Therefore, couple therapists are advised to use emotion-focused couple therapy to improve depression and marital burnout of infertile couples.