Communal Coping in Couple Alcohol Treatment

Communal coping (CC: Lyons, Mickelson, Sullivan & Coyne, 1998) is an approach to dealing with problems characterized by a sense that the problem and responsibility for solving it are shared. CC has been shown to relate to relationship duration and health outcomes, but its role in couple therapy has not been examined. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether pre-treatment, observer-rated CC would predict or moderate retention and drinking outcome in 2 types of couple therapy for alcoholism. Seventy heterosexual couples in which 1 partner was alcoholic attended up to 20 sessions of conjoint cognitive-behavioral (CBT) or family systems (FST) therapy. Regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between CC and retention in therapy (number of sessions attended and treatment completion), and between CC and abstinence from alcohol at last contact with the study. Due to differential attrition from measurement, analyses of drinking outcome were exploratory. Results indicated that couples low in baseline CC attended fewer sessions of CBT, while CC was not associated with attendance of FST. CC therefore functioned as a moderator of retention in treatment rather than a general predictor of response. Exploratory analyses of drinking outcome did not reveal a relationship between CC and abstinence from alcohol. Moreover, CC did not increase in the course of either therapy, and within-couple changes in CC were not associated with retention. Preliminary evidence for discriminant validity of CC was found: results suggest our measure of CC is distinct from indices of relationship quality. Pending replication, results suggest that baseline CC may moderate the relationship between the type of treatment and treatment retention