"Up-Armoring" At-Risk Military Couples: A Stepped Approach to Early Intervention and Strengthening of Military Families

NCT06948877 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: FA8650-17-C-6808
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 581
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The study tested whether giving young, partnered military service members access to an online relationship help website would help prevent future relationship problems compared to partnered service member who did not have access to the website

Conditions

Couples Therapy; Military Family

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (3)

• Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Brief (MSI-B; Whisman et al., 2009)

  The MSI-B is a true-false, self-report measure of relationship distress derived from the full The MSI-B is a true-false, self-report measure of relationship distress derived from the full True-false, self-report measure of relationship distress

  six months

• Family Maltreatment measure (Heyman et al., 2021)

  Whether the participant or partner had engaged in intimate partner violence

  six months

• Infidelity

  Whether the participant or partner had been intimate with non-partner

  six months

Study Arms (2)

Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Access to a self-directed, online couple intervention offered preventively

Behavioral: ARMOR Online

Control

NO INTERVENTION

Usual resources for relationship assistance in the military

Interventions

ARMOR Online BEHAVIORAL

The online version of ARMOR comprised three core components. The first was an MI-based relationship "check-up" with a brief relationship assessment. In the second component, SMs chose relationship improvement domains from a list of 10 topic areas or modules and watched a short (5-7 minute) video on their chosen area providing (a) evidence-based or evidence-informed psychoeducation, (b) modeling of skills, and (c) practice of the skills. For the third component, SMs were asked MI's "key question" (i.e., "What's the next step?" Miller \& Rollnick, 2023) and, if desired, completed a planning module where they were given the opportunity to create a personalized action plan (specifying how they might test any planned changes to see if they had the desired impact).

Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• To be included in the study, participants had to be: (a) in a committed romantic relationship for at least six months and (b) on active duty (not Guard or Reserve).

You may not qualify if:

• Participants with prior military service (i.e., not new to the military who were retraining into a different career field) were excluded.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Wright State University: lead
• Family Translational Research Group: collaborator
• Texas A&M University: collaborator
• Binghamton University: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Keesler Air Force Base

Biloxi, Mississippi, 39540, United States

Location

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: Participants were randomly assigned by in-processing week to the intervention or the control condition.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 21, 2025
• First Posted: April 29, 2025
• Study Start: October 19, 2021
• Primary Completion: September 30, 2024
• Study Completion: September 30, 2024
• Last Updated: April 29, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)