Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Internet intervention for well-being in the context of work-family conflict among dual-earner couples: Protocol for four-arm randomized controlled trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) are associated with poorer mental health and lower satisfaction in both work and family domains. Psychological interventions targeting the specific processes underlying interrole conflict remain limited, and little is known about whether involving both partners produces benefits beyond those achieved when only one partner receives an intervention. Internet-delivered interventions offer an accessible and flexible format for addressing these challenges in dual-earner couples.
Objective:
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an internet-delivered psychological intervention for dual-earner couples experiencing WFC and FWC. The primary objective is to determine whether the intervention reduces perceived stress compared with a waitlist control condition. Secondary objectives are to examine effects on job satisfaction, family satisfaction, and time-based and strain-based WFC and FWC, to compare dyadic delivery with delivery to one partner only, and to investigate actor and partner associations between changes in interrole conflict and changes in well-being outcomes.
Methods:
A four-arm, parallel-group randomized controlled trial will recruit 282 heterosexual dual-earner couples (564 individuals). Couples will be allocated to a dyadic intervention condition, an individual female-partner intervention condition, an individual male-partner intervention condition, or a waitlist control condition. The unguided, 3-week internet-delivered intervention comprises time-based and strain-based components that combine psychoeducation, self-monitoring, self-compassion, boundary management, emotional awareness, communication, implementation intentions, and behavioral experiments. Both partners will complete assessments at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and at the 6-month follow-up. The primary outcome is perceived stress at postintervention. Secondary outcomes include work- and family-related well-being and work-family conflict. Theory-relevant and intervention-related measures will assess potential predictors of change, credibility and expectancy, user experience, adherence, and engagement. Outcomes will be analyzed using mixed-effects models accounting for repeated observations and the interdependence of partners’ data. Actor-partner models will examine dyadic associations.
Results:
The study received ethical approval in July 2026. Recruitment is scheduled to begin in October 2026, and completion of the final follow-up assessments is anticipated in spring 2027. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and an anonymized data set deposited in a public repository.
Conclusions:
This trial will provide evidence on the effectiveness of a theory-driven internet intervention targeting both directions of interrole conflict and will test whether participation by both partners offers benefits beyond individual delivery. By integrating efficacy, dyadic, and implementation-related outcomes, the study may inform the development of scalable interventions supporting well-being among dual-earner couples. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT07845799
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.