ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1564666
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Health Psychology in Practice: Enhancing Well-being and Improving Health Outcomes Across Diverse ContextsView all 18 articles
Healing Hearts Together -An Emotionally Focused Intervention for Couples after a Cardiac Event: A Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol
Provisionally accepted
Heather E. Tulloch1*
Paul Greenman2
Jennifer Reed1
Stephanie Susinski1Eniko Kasos Kasos1
George Tasca3Lisa Mielniczuk4George Wells1
Louise Sun5- 1University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Canada
- 2University of Quebec in Outaouais, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
- 3University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- 4Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, United States
- 5School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
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Couple relationships are important for health. Relationship Distress is associated with increased incident and prognostic cardiovascular risk, while positive support is linked to heart-healthy behaviours and improved outcomes. This paper describes the study rationale, objectives, design, and methods of the Healing Hearts Together (HHT) randomized controlled trial (RCT).Objectives: The primary objective is to examine the difference in relationship quality between the 8-week HHT intervention group and usual care (UC) at program completion. Secondary objectives include evaluating the impact of HHT on relationship quality at 6 months, and mental health, quality of life, and cardiovascular risk factors measured at 8 weeks and 6 months postintervention, as compared to usual care. Methods: Patients and their partners are recruited within 6 months of a cardiac event, procedure, or hospitalization and randomized 1:1 to HHT or UC. Assessments occur at baseline, 8 weeks, and 6 months follow-up. Analyses are planned as intention-to-treat, with multi-level analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) for the primary outcome: 8-week relationship quality as measured by the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Secondary objectives will be evaluated using multi-level modeling for repeated measures. Anticipated results: It is expected that participants randomized to HHT will report higher relationship quality and improved secondary outcomes than will participants in UC. Conclusion: As the first study to evaluate a relationship-enhancement program for couples with cardiac disease, findings will have important clinical implications regarding the effect of relationship interventions on heart health.
Keywords: cardiovascular disease, couples, relationship quality, intervention, emotionallyfocused therapy (EFT), Attachment
Received: 21 Jan 2025; Accepted: 09 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tulloch, Greenman, Reed, Susinski, Kasos, Tasca, Mielniczuk, Wells and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Heather E. Tulloch, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Canada
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