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Development of a systemic premarital counselling programme and evaluating its impact on young adults' couple relationships: A pilot study

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop, implement, and evaluate a premarital counselling programme based on a systemic approach (SPMC). The Couple Relationship Scale (CRS) was used as a data collection tools. We randomly selected 24 participants from Turkish university students who scored low on the CRS subscales and agreed to participate in the study. We provided the experimental group with eight sessions of SPMC. The control group did not receive any intervention at all. We used quantitative data to determine the change in participants’ couple relationships and qualitative data to determine their views about SPMC and their personal awareness. Analysis shows that SPMC had an effect on the experimental group in terms of the communication, romance-sexuality, conflict resolution, and acceptance of differences subscales scores. Follow-up indicated that the effect of the SPMC was still measurable 12 and 24 weeks after the completion of SPMC. The obtained results are discussed on a theoretical basis.

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Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current research are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, 51240, Niğde, Turkey

    Yasemin Yavuzer

  2. Career Center, Çukurova University, 01330, Adana, Turkey

    Hacı Arif Doğanülkü

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  1. Yasemin Yavuzer
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  2. Hacı Arif Doğanülkü
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Correspondence to Hacı Arif Doğanülkü.

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Ethical approval statement

The study was performed under the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved and registered by the Ethics Committee of Niğde Omer Halisdemir University.

Informed consent

Participants were informed about what would happen with their data, and their right to withdraw from the study at any point. All data collected were stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act. Informed consent was obtained during the participants’ intake assessment session before SPMC commenced.

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Yavuzer, Y., Doğanülkü, H.A. Development of a systemic premarital counselling programme and evaluating its impact on young adults' couple relationships: A pilot study. Curr Psychol 43, 5179–5192 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04715-w

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