Same Gender Couples Coping Assessment Tool - Part 2

In a prior MRI funded study in 2020 titled “CCET-SMS program: Towards the development of a couple’s coping program for same-gender couples” Dr. Ashley K. Randall, Associate Professor in Counseling and Counseling Psychology at Arizona State University and Dr. Casey J. Totenhagen, Associate  Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Alabama, completed an initial revision of the Couples Coping Enhancement Training for use with sexual minorities (Couples Coping Enhancement Training – Sexual Minority Stress [CCET-SMS]).

CCET-SMS is a relationship education program based on the empirically validated CCET program, developed by Guy Bodenmann at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.  Specifically, CCET-SMS aims to teach same-gender couples how to cope with sexual minority stress, which can impact individuals and couples’ well-being and psychological health and lead to high rates of dissolution and increased difficulties with coping.

The CCET-SMS is an innovative relationship education program that focuses explicitly on teaching same-gender couples about sources of sexual minority stress, its impact on individual and relational well-being, while allowing for participants to learn and practice dyadic coping skills found to be beneficial in reducing the deleterious effects of stress.

The current MRI funded study titled “Couples Coping Enhancement Training – Sexual Minority Stress (CCET-SMS): Initial feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy” has the following two aims: 1) Review the revised CCET-SMS program using Expert Panel feedback, and 2) Test the initial feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of the program. Consistent with best practices for feasibility studies, Randall and Totenhagen will test their ability to recruit participants, evaluate data collection procedures, and implement and evaluate the intervention and its efficacy. Ten same- gender couples living in the Phoenix-metro area will be recruited to participate in the

CCET-SMS, wherein they will complete a pre-test, the CCET-SMS program, and a follow-up four weeks later.