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OBJECTIVE: To follow distressed married couples for 5 years after their participation in a randomized clinical trial. METHOD: A total of 134 chronically and seriously distressed married couples were randomly assigned to approximately 8 months of either traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT; Jacobson Jacobson 50.0% of IBCT couples and 45.9% of TBCT couples showed clinically significant improvement. Relationship status, obtained on all 134 couples, revealed that 25.7% of IBCT couples and 27.9% of TBCT couples were separated or divorced. These follow-up data compared favorably to other, long-term results of couple therapy. CONCLUSION: TBCT and IBCT both produced substantial effect sizes in even seriously and chronically distressed couples. IBCT produced significantly but not dramatically superior outcomes through the first 2 years after treatment termination but without further intervention; outcomes for the 2 treatments converged over longer follow-up periods.
Christensen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.