Effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy on the Control of Infertile Couples’ Emotions

Abstract

Introduction: Infertility is one of the bitter experiences in life and causes many psychological problems, such as low control over emotions in infertile couples. However, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) is one of the interventions that has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of EFCT in promoting emotional control of couples with infertility living in Isfahan City, Iran. Materials and Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design and a control group. The statistical population consists of all infertile couples referred to infertility centers of Isfahan in 2016. Of these couples, 40 people were selected using convenience sampling method and randomly divided into the case or EFCT group (n=20) and control group (n=20). Both groups completed the Affective Control Scale of Williams et al. before the intervention, and then the case group received an 8-session EFCT intervention (two 90-min sessions per week for four weeks). After the intervention, the couples did the questionnaires again. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Univariate ANCOVA). Results: The results of univariate ANCOVA showed that EFCT was effective in improving the infertile couples’ control over their emotions (P=0.001). Conclusion: It seems that EFCT can improve the control of infertile couples over their emotions.