A randomized controlled trial of a 5-year marriage checkup booster session for a subsample of responder couples

Abstract

This study examined maintenance and booster effects of a brief couple intervention, the Marriage Checkup (MC), across 5 years. A subsample of 63 couples who benefitted from two previous MCs (responder couples), were randomly assigned to a third MC or control. Before randomization (at 4-years-9-months), the responder sample had maintained small to medium effects on two measures of relationship functioning. After randomization, we found no significant between-group effects. Yet, within-group analyses revealed that while control couples showed flat trajectories in all outcomes after the 4-year-9-months baseline, couples receiving a third MC (at Year 5) reported small to medium improvements in three measures of relationship functioning and maintained follow-up effect in one measure. Findings indicate that couples who initially improved from the MC can maintain some of their improvements over long periods. The potential of boosting such improvements with recurrent MCs is a relevant target for further investigation in larger samples.