OurRelationship-S: A Digital Relationship-Strengthening Program for Couples Experiencing Substance Misuse

Relationship conflict and distress are common presenting complaints during recovery from SUD and can lead to a reoccurrence and/or increase in use of substances. Poor romantic relationships also interfere with successful SUD treatment and recovery interventions. Therefore, documenting the effects of the initial version of the Our Relationship program tailored for couples in recovery and generating ideas for subsequent improvements will be important advancements in efforts to increase social recovery capital for individuals with substance misuse.

The OurRelationship program is based on the empirically-supported Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT) approach, which has been found to have beneficial effects through five years after treatment. IBCT was translated into a web-based format by Dr. Brian Doss. As part of a completed R01-funded project, 300 couples were randomly assigned to receive the OurRelationship program or to a wait-list control group (Doss et al., 2016). Compared to the waitlist group, intervention couples reported significant improvements in relationship satisfaction (Cohen's d = 0.69), relationship confidence (d = 0.47), and negative relationship quality (d = 0.57). Additionally, couples reported significant improvements in multiple domains of individual functioning, especially when individuals began the program with difficulties in that domain: depressive (d = 0.71) and anxious symptoms (d = 0.94), perceived health (d = 0.51), work functioning (d = 0.57), and quality of life (d = 0.44).

In another completed RCT (Doss et al., 2020; Roddy et al., 2020), almost 2,000 low-income couples were randomly assigned to receive the Our Relationship program or a wait-list control group. Compared to the waitlist control group, those that received the OurRelationship program experienced improvements in relationship satisfaction (d = 0.53), emotional support (d = 0.46), as well as decreases in breakup potential (d = -0.53), conflict (d = -0.78), and the presence of IPV (d = -0.10). Most notably for the present study, participants who reported problematic alcohol use at baseline experienced significantly greater reductions in problematic alcohol use than did those in the control group (d = -0.33).

Recruitment

Couples will be recruited from five community recovery organizations that have agreed to partner in this project. As part of their standard intake process, Our-S will be offered to all appropriate individuals (e.g., those in a committed romantic relationship of at least 6 months duration). Clients will be provided with pamphlets to deliver to their partner as well as a dedicated webpage designed to address partner-perspective questions and concerns.