الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Background: Premarital counselling is a preventative measure for assisting couples in achieving a happy, satisfied and healthy marriage. The nurse is a key player in premarital counselling, by assessing newlywed couples’ knowledge, discussing marriage issues and providing all appropriate supportive measures. Aim: To explore the effect of premarital counseling on marital satisfaction of newlywed couples in Port Said governerate. Design: A quasi experimental (Two group: Study and control; pre/post-test) was applied. Setting: This study was carried out at at four primary health care centers representing all Port Said governerate districts, namely First Port-Fouad, El Abouty, El Nasr -Outpatient and El- Kuwait centers that are affiliated with the universal health insurance in the Port Said governerate. Subjects: Purposive sample, the study subjects consisted of 100 newlywed couples were equally and randomly assigned to 50 couples in study group who received counselling and 50 couples in control group who received routine center care). Tools: Three tools used for data collection which were; newlywed couple’s knowledge questionnaire, newlywed couple’s attitude inventory, and Enrich marital satisfaction inventory to assess marital satisfaction at the first and sixth month after marriage. Results: The current study revealed that the majority (92.0%) of the couples in the study group at the first month were satisfied of their marriage compared to 88.0% of the same group at the sixth month of marriage, while more than two third of the control group couples (68.0%) were satisfied at the first month of marriage but at the sixth month, this satisfaction declined to 42.0%. Additionally, there were highly statistically significant differences between the study and control group couples with marital satisfaction at the first and sixth month after marriage p ‹0.01. Conclusion: Premarital counseling positively affected newlywed couples’ marital satisfaction. Recommendations: Formal premarital counseling should be mandatory for all couples including some important topics as communication skills, conflict resolution, as well as sexuality to improve marriage satisfaction.