Couples Communication Assessment Tools: A systematic Review

Abstract

Couple communication plays an important role in the development of intimate relationships. Selecting the right measures based on the researchers' research questions would be a crucial step for purpose of research and practice. The current study systematically evaluated twenty-one commonly utilized measures that focus on assessing couple communication, identified from current literatures stemming from the past 60 years. In addition, 380 unique empirical articles that utilized each individual measure were identified from the PsychInfo database. The theoretical foundation, the strengths and the limitations, and the level of applicability to diverse settings was evaluated for each measure based on the evidence. The best practices in terms of each measure were suggested and discussed based on the patterns found from empirical articles included in current study. Directions for future research were also provided.