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

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

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Military Family; Couples Therapy
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: ARMOR Online

Detailed Description

This study tested whether access to a self-directed, online couple intervention offered preventively lessened the occurrence of future negative relationship outcomes (i.e., relationship dysfunction, infidelity, intimate partner violence (IPV) for partnered service members in comparison to the usual resources for relationship assistance in the military. Participants were active-duty military in a committed romantic relationship of at least 6-months duration (N = 581; 37.2% married) who had recently completed basic military training and were transitioning into technical training to learn a specific job skill set. Participants were randomly assigned by in-processing week to the intervention or the control condition. The intervention effect was modeled using both Intent to Treat (ITT) and Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE) approaches.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 581
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Mississippi
    • Biloxi, Mississippi, United States, 39540
      • Keesler Air Force Base

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 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).

Exclusion Criteria:

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

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention; Access to a self-directed, online couple intervention offered preventively	Behavioral: ARMOR Online; 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).
No Intervention: Control; Usual resources for relationship assistance in the military

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
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

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Wright State University
• Collaborators: Texas A&M University; Binghamton University; Family Translational Research Group

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 19, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 30, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): September 30, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 21, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 21, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): April 29, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 29, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 21, 2025
• Last Verified: April 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: FA8650-17-C-6808

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No