the comparison of the effects of training self-awareness and problem-solving skills on marital satisfaction of married women: a randomized controlled trial

Background: one of the most important causes of marital dissatisfaction is the lack of life skills. this study aimed to compare the effects of training self-awareness and problem-solving skills on marital satisfaction of married women. methods: this study was a randomized field trial conducted in gorgan since october 2019 to september 2020. a total of 105 married women were allocated to one of two interventions or a control group based on triplex block randomization. data collection tools were the persian version of the self-awareness questionnaire, problem-solving questionnaire and four enrich couple scales. the participants completed the questionnaires before (t1), immediately (t2), and one month after the intervention completion (t3). the first intervention group received self-awareness skills training and the second received problem-solving skills training one session per week for four weeks. the control group did not receive any training. data were analyzed using one-way anova, kruskal-wallis, chisquare, fishers exact test, exact test, repeated measure anova, and bonferroni test, using spss 16. a p value <0.05 was considered significant. results: the mean score of enrich scales in the three groups, immediately and one month after the intervention, were not statistically significant (p>0.05). however, in the problem-solving group, the scale of marital satisfaction was significantly different at t2 and t3 (31.40±4.55, 33±5.21, p=0.008). in the self-awareness training group at t1 and t3, the mean of the conflict resolution scale (32.60±63.28, 33.94±5.74, p=0.03) was significantly different. conclusion: the results showed that problem-solving skills training was more effective in increasing the score of marital satisfaction compared to self-awareness skills training.