Attitudes Toward Relationship Treatment Among Underserved Couples

Attitudinal and instrumental barriers exist for couples broadly that prevent couples from accessing professional relationship help. These barriers may be even more pronounced among couples from low-income, and other underserved, backgrounds. The current study examined how couples' (N = 651 couples) presenting attitudes toward seeking couple treatment, and change in these attitudes, differed as a function of demographic variables within a brief relationship education program, Relationship Checkup (Gordon et al., 2020). Results revealed that individuals who identified as male, a person of color, had lower income, or were cohabiting evidenced poorer baseline attitudes relative to their demographic counterparts. Further, people of color and people who were cohabiting evidenced greater change in attitudes across the intervention relative to their demographic counterparts. Thus, clinicians may benefit from considering that underserved couples appear to face attitudinal barriers in addition to known instrumental barriers (e.g., financial, transportation, childcare, time, etc.). Clinical and research implications are discussed.