The impact of premartital counselling on marital adjustment among christian couples in the cape coast metropolis

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of premarital counselling on adjustment among Christian couples in the Cape Coast Metropolis. A case study was used as the design for the study. Convenience sampling procedure was used to select the three churches from the metropolis. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data for the study. Using Tabacknik & Fidell (1996) procedure for sample size determination, a sample size of 300 Christian couples were selected for the study. The study revealed that many Christian husbands and wives had positive attitude towards the views on premarital counselling as only few of them had negative attitude towards views on premarital counselling. It also revealed that many Christian husbands and wives found experience and knowledge gained from premarital counselling to be very relevant to their marriage life. There was no significant difference in Christian husbands and wives who had undergone premarital counselling, and those who had not. Also, there was no significant difference in the marital adjustment level of Christian husbands and wives who had undergone premarital counselling and those who had not. As a result of the findings, it was recommended that Counsellors should make pre-counselling assessment to ascertain areas where the prospective couple may have challenges and counsel them on those areas. The study also recommended that the counselling relationship should be terminated based on the goals set, but in most cases it is terminated without reaching any set goals. Therefore counsellors and prospective couples should make sure that goals are set for the counselling process and these must be achieved before they terminate the counselling process.