Development and Validation of a Spiritual Health Education Protocol for Conflicted Couples

Background and Objectives: Given the importance of the family system in Iranian-Islamic culture and the necessity of addressing marital conflicts, this study aimed to develop and validate an educational protocol for promoting family spiritual health, focusing on reducing marital disputes and improving the quality of family life. The developed protocol, focusing on spiritual concepts, such as spiritual self-awareness, forgiveness, patience, hope, and trust, aims to help manage conflicts and improve marital relationships by strengthening the spiritual dimensions of couples. Methods: The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, data were collected from three statistical populations and three samples: the population and sample of couples experiencing conflict, the population and sample of experts, and the population and sample of related articles and texts in the research literature. The data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach. This analysis led to the identification of central themes and the development of a training protocol. In the second stage, the training protocol developed using the Delphi method was validated by experts. Results: The educational protocol was developed in the form of eleven sessions with the main components, including spiritual self-awareness, principles of dialogue, forgiveness, spiritual problem solving, patience, hope, indifference, gratitude, and finally. The relative content validity coefficient and content validity index were calculated for each item. The main reasons for the content validity of this protocol are its comprehensiveness and coherence in addressing fundamental spiritual concepts and their application in marital life. In contrast, designing this protocol using a qualitative approach and content analysis has provided an opportunity to identify the real needs and challenges faced by couples. Conclusion: The protocol developed in this study to educate families about spiritual health and reduce marital conflicts had acceptable content validity. The studies conducted demonstrated that all sessions of this protocol were designed based on themes extracted from scientific and religious sources, as well as the experiences of couples and experts, and included the necessary indicators for content validation. It is recommended that the effectiveness of this protocol be evaluated through empirical studies to better understand its impact on reducing marital conflicts and improving couples’ quality of life (QoL).