Effects of psychoeducational group on Muslim Spouses’ communication
Ahmad, R1, Hassan, S.A2.
Statistics released by Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM) shows that
the marital conflict and divorce rates among Muslim increases every year.
There are a range of factors associated with marital conflict and divorce.
In present study communication is highlighted as the factor that contribute
to marital conflict and divorce among Muslim spouses. In an effort to help
spouses manage and overcome marital conflicts, Muslim spouses need for
an Islamic base according to the religious perspective. For that purposes
this article is an attempt to examine the effects of psychoeducational group
known as Marital Psycho-Spiritual Intervention (MP-SI) on communication
among Muslim husbands and wives at Felda in Kedah. A psychoeducational
group is a systematic effort to help improve the functioning of Muslim
spouses’ communication through education and preventative means which
widely used in guidance and counseling services. It is a group approach
conducted by marriage counselors to educate and disseminating knowledge
and skills related to marriage relationships. The randomized controlled trials
(randomized control group design with pretest, posttest and follow up test) was
used in this study. The experimental and control group of this study was totally
composed of 76 participants, 38 in experimental group and 38 in control
group. Participants in experimental group received a treatment of MP-SI for
6 weeks (2 hours per week). Marital Communication Inventory (MCI) was
utilized to obtain the data for communication in three times (pretest, posttest,
and follow up). A Mixed Between-Within Subjects ANOVA was used to see the
differences between the mean scores of pretest, posttest, and follow up test
within both experimental and control group. The results from mixed betweenwithin subjects ANOVA showed that there were a statistically significant main effect of time and group for communication. Participants in the experimental
group showed improvement in communication compared to the control group
over the three time periods. These findings demonstrated the MP-SI conducted
in this study had a higher impact on the experimental group and the effect
was similar on the male and female participants. These results reveal valuable
information that an Islamic psycho-spiritual approach that emphasizes the
spiritual practices and element of nafs (soul), aql (intellect), qalb (heart), and
ruh (spirit) help improve Muslim spouses’ communication.
Affiliation:
- Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia
- Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Toggle translation
Download this article (This article has been downloaded 35 time(s))