Symposia
Couples / Close Relationships
Yunying Le, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania
S. Gabe Hatch, M.S.
Graduate Student
University of Miami
MIAMI, Florida
Zachary Goodman, M.A.
Predoctoral Psychology Trainee
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL
Brian Doss, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
Low-income couples are at an increased risk for relationship instability and divorce, which can have residual impacts on coparenting between the two partners. They are also facing greater barriers accessing relationship help. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these barriers are further exacerbated, while the need for relationship services has increased. Fortunately, growing evidence suggests that brief online relationship education programs can be an effective tool for alleviating relationship distress among low-income couples. However, findings remain mixed when it comes to whether benefits from relationship-focused programs not explicitly addressing coparenting spillover to coparenting among those with children. This pre-registered study sought to investigate whether couples participating in an evidence-based online relationship-focused intervention, the OurRelationship program, experienced improvements in relationship satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether there were spillover improvements in the coparenting domain. To expand on the existing literature, coparenting outcomes assessed included partners’ gatekeeping behaviors in addition to coparenting satisfaction given their important implication for partner involvement in parenting. We also directly tested the theorized spillover effect from relationship satisfaction gains to improvements in the coparenting domain. Whether changes in coparenting were moderated by child gender, division of childcare, and pandemic disruptions were also examined. In a sample of 136 low-income couples (N = 272 individuals) and a one group/pre-post design, we found reliable large-sized gains in relationship satisfaction (Cohen’s d = .76) and reliable small-sized improvements in all coparenting aspects assessed (|ds| = .29 - .39). Couples with greater satisfaction gains experienced reliably greater coparenting improvements and coparenting changes did not differ reliably by child gender, division of childcare, or pandemic disruptions. Taken together, findings suggested that brief online relationship education programs, such as the OurRelationship program, may be a promising option to improve couples' relationship satisfaction and coparenting among relationally distressed low-income couples with children during a global health crisis.