Get Better Together: Relationship Education For Military Couples (GBT RCT)

Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Alcohol Use; Suicide Risk; Interpersonal Emotion Regulation; Relationship Distress; Emotion Regulation; Intimate Partner Violence (IPV); Relationship Conflict

Treatments: Behavioral: Get Better Together (GBT)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT07096271

HT94252410843 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

USUHS.2022-100

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is testing a program called Get Better Together, a relationship education program designed to help military couples effectively navigate life stressors as a team. The goal is to find out if attending Get Better Together improves mental health and relationship skills, and reduces problems like alcohol misuse, aggression, and suicide risk. Couples who join the study will be randomly placed into one of two groups. One group will attend Get Better Together at a weekend retreat. The other group will continue their usual activities and later receive access to an online relationship education program. All participants will complete surveys before the retreat and again 2, 4, and 6 months later.

Enrollment: 1,000 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Couple is in a committed romantic relationship of at least six months
• At least one partner is a military Service member on active duty
• Both partners are age 18 or older
• Couple has not previously attended a relationship enrichment retreat or workshop together (e.g., CREDO, Strong Bonds, BSRT). This does not include couples therapy or pre-marital counseling.

Exclusion criteria

• One or both partners decline to provide informed consent
• Required command endorsement for retreat attendance is not received (for Service members E-6 and below)
• Couple is unable or unwilling to attend any of the scheduled retreats during the study period

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,000 participants in 2 patient groups

Get Better Together (GBT)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants assigned to this arm will attend an in-person weekend retreat where they receive approximately 10 hours of structured curriculum focused on equipping couples with evidence informed strategies to cope with stress as a team, improve emotion regulation, and reduce conflict. GBT includes modules on emotion awareness, acceptance, reappraisal, constructive problem solving, and communication. The format integrates didactic material, videos, group discussions, and couples' skill practice. All materials and delivery methods have been tailored for military populations based on extensive stakeholder input and field testing.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Get Better Together (GBT)

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Couples in the control group will not receive any structured relationship enrichment programming (e.g., retreats or workshops) during the 6-month follow-up period. After the 6-month follow-up period, couples in the control group will be provided access to ePREP, a self-paced on line version of the PREP curriculum.