The Williamson Lab has a new paper in press at the journal Family Relations which examines whether treatment outcomes for relationship education differ by level of pre-treatment relationship functioning. Using data from ~1600 low-income couples who participated in an RCT of relationship education, we first used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify distinct sub-groups based upon their pre-treatment reports of their relationship happiness, commitment, perceived partner commitment, and thoughts that the relationship was in trouble. Four classes of pre-treatment relationship functioning emerged: Happy, Stable (44%), Moderately Distressed (39%), Highly Distressed Women (10%), and Highly Distressed Men (7%).

We next tested for treatment effects (compared to the no treatment control condition) within each LCA group. Significant 12-month treatment effects were found only for women in the Happy, Stable group. Thus, we find that a large number of distressed couples enroll in relationship education programs (56% of couples in this sample), but do not benefit from the intervention. We suggest that in order to ensure that all couples receive an intervention that is effective for them, changes to the current delivery of community-based relationship educaiton programs is needed. Couples should be screened for their level of relationship functioning and assigned to an intervention that is appropriate for their needs. To accomplish this, relationship education curricula may need to be adapted to address the needs of distressed couples, or relationship education providers may need to partner with agencies delivering more intensive treatment (such as couple therapy).

Post-doc Betul Urganci and PhD student Nick Chen are authors on this manuscript, and both will be presenting this work at conferences in the coming weeks. Nick will present at NCFR in Orlando on Nov 9 and Betul will present at ABCT in Seattle on Nov 17.