Communication skills training with the transactional analysis approach developed menopausal women’s marital adjustment – a quasi-experimental study

Introduction
Communication skills help people have a better life. Due to the changes caused by menopause and their effects on interpersonal communication, it is essential to reinforce communication skills during this period. This study aimed to investigate the effect of communication skills training (CST) using the transactional analysis (TA) approach on menopausal women’s marital adjustment.

Material and methods
This quasi-experimental study with a parallel design was performed by the availability sampling method with participation of 46 married menopausal women. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups. The intervention group participated in eight CST sessions with a TA approach. The control group did not receive any psychosocial or educational services. Participants completed the demographic information, Queen Dam communication skills, and Spinner’s marital adjustment questionnaire before, at the end of, and one month after the training period. Data were analyzed by descriptive and analytical tests with SPSS22 software.

Results
There was no significant difference in demographics between the groups (p < 0.05). The mean marital adjustment scores were 53.48 ±12.24, 117.70 ±11.15, and 116.52 ±10.73 before, at the end of, and one month after the intervention, respectively. The marital adjustment scores before the intervention did not differ between the two groups but significantly increased after training and in the follow-up period (p < 0.001).

Conclusions
Communication skills training with a TA approach in postmenopausal women improves marital adjustment. Therefore, it is suggested that midwives use this method in comprehensive health centers as an effective method for improving the lives of postmenopausal women.