The Effect of Emotional Focused Intervention on Spousal Emotional Abuse and Marital Satisfaction among Elderly Married Couples: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Maryam Hazrati, Tengku Aizan Hamid, Rahimah Ibrahim and 3 others
PMID 29043279WHAT IT FOUND
Elderly couples assigned to emotion-focused group education reported less self-evaluated emotional abuse and higher marital satisfaction at three months than waiting-list controls.
Control wives also improved slightly, so follow-up timing may matter.
Key findings
01Husbands in the emotion-focused group reported less emotional abuse after the intervention and at three-month follow-up than husbands in the waiting-list control group.
02Wives in the emotion-focused group reported less emotional abuse after the intervention and at follow-up than wives in the control group, but control wives also decreased slightly.
03Marital satisfaction increased at three-month follow-up in the emotion-focused group for both husbands and wives, while control scores did not increase.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The couples were volunteers from clinic announcements, so they may not represent older couples seeking help for emotional abuse. Follow-up occurred during Ramadan, and the authors suggest this may have lowered abusive behavior in the control group. The reported results were only self-evaluation of emotional abuse; partner evaluation was not analysed in this paper. The control group also had a small significant decrease in wives' emotional abuse, so some change was not confined to the intervention group.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the intervention alone explains every improvement. Wives in the waiting-list control group also showed a slight significant decrease at follow-up, and the authors suggest Ramadan may have reduced abusive behavior.