Trial reportApplied psychology. Health and well-being2020
Helping Couples Connect during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial of an Awareness, Courage, and Love Intervention.
Trial report in Applied psychology. Health and well-being, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Love in the time of COVID-19: A systematic mapping review of empirical research on romantic relationships one year into the COVID-19 pandemic.Family process · 2022Pooled it
- Videoconferencing Delivery of the Seoul Premarital Education Program During COVID-19: A Quasi-experimental Study Using Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2026Article
- Masculinity, Social Connection, and Loneliness: A Contextual Behavioral Science Approach to Men's Social Relationships and Intimacy.Journal of contextual behavioral science · 2025Article
- An Awareness, Courage, and Love Online Group Intervention for Chinese Older Adults in the Post-Pandemic Era: Study Protocol for a Randomised Controlled Trial.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Autonomy-connection tensions, stress, and attachment: The case of COVID-19.Current opinion in psychology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA second pandemic of mental health problems due to COVID-19 is predicted, suggesting a demand for interventions to mitigate its impacts. This study evaluated the effectiveness of an online psychological intervention based on the Awareness, Courage, and Love (ACL) model from Functional Analytic Psychotherapy to promote closeness between couples during the pandemic.
methodThirty-one couples were randomised into either the intervention or control group for a 2-hour online group session. The intervention was designed to increase closeness between couples, whereas control group members watched a movie. In both groups, participants responded to two instruments that assessed the couple's relationship. Generalised linear mixed modeling was used to compare the change scores over time between the groups, with random effects used to control for the correlation within a couple and the correlation within the individual.
resultsThe intervention group's closeness increased by 23 per cent while the control group's closeness increased only 2 per cent. A week later, a significant difference between the two groups emerged on closeness.
conclusionOnline ACL protocols requiring minimal training offer a promising intervention to quickly buffer against stress for large numbers of individuals during pandemic times.
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Registered trials
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