Marriage Education and Risk Reduction for Army Families

军队家庭的婚姻教育和降低风险

• 批准号: 7035223
• 负责人: SCOTT M STANLEY
• 金额: $ 56.59万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF DENVER (COLORADO SEMINARY)
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-05-01 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7035223
• 关键词: behavioral /social science research tag; child rearing; clinical research; conflict; divorce /separation; dyadic interaction; family structure /dynamics; health services research tag; human subject; human therapy evaluation; interpersonal relations; longitudinal human study; marriage /marital status; marriage counseling; mental health education; military personnel; psychological stressor; questionnaires; religion; substance abuse related behavior

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Marital distress and divorce is of great concern in the U.S., as the divorce rate for first marriages is around 40 to 45%, and marital problems are a risk factor for a variety of child and adult problems. To combat disturbing trends of marital dissolution and distress, as well as the associated problems and costs, there is increasing government support for the wide spread implementation of marriage education. Although this movement is supported by existing empirical research, we still need to know much about marital processes over time and the effects of marriage education, particularly across diverse samples and outcomes. We propose to implement a community level, controlled, longitudinal, randomized investigation of an ongoing marriage education program for Army couples delivered by Army chaplains. The intervention is an Army adaptation of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) for young married Army couples. This adaptation is entitled Building Strong and Ready Families (BSRF). BSRF is designed to target empirically identified risk and protective factors for marital conflict and distress, which are also strongly associated with a range of individual and family functioning problems. We seek to test the impact of BSRF on a range of relationship risk and protective factors, and the effects of intervening with these factors on a wide range of outcomes which have not been studied in the marriage education literature, including depression, substance abuse, parenting, and child behavior outcomes. We will also evaluate a uniquely wide range of important, yet understudied, relationship constructs. We also have access to a uniquely diverse population, one not typically reached by traditional mental health services, due to the demographic make up of the Army and the use of Army chaplains as service providers (hence, a less stigmatizing resource for prevention and counseling for many people who will not seek services from a mental health professional). Our longitudinal design will allow tests of bi-directional effects of variables such as mental health and relationship health over time, enabling us to test and refine our theoretical model of relationship risk and protective factors. Thus, the proposed research investigates underlying factors of healthy marriage, processes of marital distress and dissolution, bidirectional effects of marital conflict and individual and family functioning, and the immediate and long term effects of marital education.

描述（由申请人提供）：婚姻困扰和离婚在美国备受关注，初婚离婚率约为 40% 至 45%，婚姻问题是各种儿童和成人问题的危险因素。为了应对婚姻破裂和痛苦的令人不安的趋势，以及相关的问题和成本，政府越来越多地支持广泛实施婚姻教育。尽管这一运动得到了现有实证研究的支持，但我们仍然需要更多地了解婚姻随着时间的推移的过程以及婚姻教育的影响，特别是在不同的样本和结果中。我们建议对陆军牧师为陆军夫妇提供的正在进行的婚姻教育计划进行社区层面的、受控的、纵向的、随机的调查。该干预措施是陆军针对年轻已婚军人夫妇的预防和关系增强计划（PREP）的改编。这部改编作品的标题是《建立坚强和准备好的家庭》(BSRF)。 BSRF 旨在针对根据经验确定的婚姻冲突和困扰的风险和保护因素，这些因素也与一系列个人和家庭功能问题密切相关。我们试图测试 BSRF 对一系列关系风险和保护因素的影响，以及干预这些因素对婚姻教育文献中尚未研究的广泛结果的影响，包括抑郁、药物滥用、养育子女和儿童行为结果。我们还将评估一系列独特且广泛的重要但尚未得到充分研究的关系结构。由于陆军的人口构成以及使用陆军牧师作为服务提供者（因此，针对心理健康问题的预防和咨询提供了一种不那么污名化的资源），因此我们还可以接触到传统心理健康服务通常无法接触到的独特的多样化人群。许多人不会寻求心理健康专业人士的服务）。我们的纵向设计将允许测试心理健康和关系健康等变量随时间的双向影响，使我们能够测试和完善我们的关系风险和保护因素的理论模型。因此，拟议的研究调查了健康婚姻的根本因素、婚姻困扰和解体的过程、婚姻冲突和个人和家庭功能的双向影响，以及婚姻教育的直接和长期影响。