the effect of solution-focused couple therapy on communication patterns and flexibility in divorce applicant couples

Introduction: satisfactory marital relations are the basis of the proper performance of families; itleads to qualification development, increased compatibility power, and adaptability among familymembers.objectives: the present study aimed to determine the effect of solution-focused couple therapy(sfct) on communicational patterns and flexibility in divorce applicant couples.materials and methods: this was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test/ post-test and a controlgroup design. the statistical population of the present study included all divorce applicant couplesreferring to the marham clinic of sari city, iran, in the second half of the year 2017. of them, 32people were selected by purposive sampling method. to collect data, we used the communicationpatterns questionnaire (cpq) by christensen and sullaway (1984) and the flexibility inventoryof dennis and vander wal (2010). as the obtained data we analyzed using descriptive statisticalmethods, including frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. besides, we employedthe multivariate analysis of covariance (mancova) and t-test to investigate the hypotheses inspss. additionally, the scheffe posthoc test was used for the two-by-two comparison of the groups.results: the present study results revealed that the experimental and control groups significantlydiffered in the solution-focused technique, and the male demands/female withdraws (t=2.44,p≤0.000) and mutual constructive communication (t=8.39, p≤0.000) subcomponents. the effectof training solution-focused technique on flexibility (f=55.63, p<0.001), alternative (f=57.85,p<0.001), control (f=17.27, p<0.001), and alternatives for human behavior (f=26.56, p<0.001) ofthe study subjects was statistically significant.conclusion: sfct affects communicational patterns and flexibility in divorce applicant couples. it issuggested that sfct be the priority of clinical interventions to increase communicational patternsand flexibility in divorce applicant couples.