Back to TTM ResultsWe recruited participants through advertisements in local newspapers, on wedding-related electronic bulletin boards, on community notice boards, and on campus-based electronic notice screens; television and print media coverage; flyers posted in businesses that provided wedding-related services (e.g., wedding dress shops); and announcements mailed to local religious organizations. Members of the research team also attended local bridal shows and passed out flyers describing the study
The most successful recruitment methods were the media ads and the bridal shows from which we received 33% and 29% of all responses, respectively. People who were interested in participating contacted the lab. Interested couples were screened for eligibility via a brief telephone interview during which we gathered demographic and relationship information that is described below.
In total, 684 individuals contacted us about the study (80% of whom were women), 461 phone screen interviews were completed, 226 couples were eligible to participate, 221 agreed to be in the study, and 201 participated (20 eligible couples who agreed to participate did not complete their questionnaires and thus were dropped from the study).
To be eligible for the Transition to Marriage project, couples had to be between 18 and 45 years of age, engaged with a set wedding date prior to November 2006, starting first marriages, currently without children, fluent in English, living in the Metro Vancouver area, and both partners had to be willing to participate. Generally, couples who were ineligible did not meet multiple inclusion criteria, but the most common reason couples could not participate in the TTM project was that their wedding date was set too far in the future to begin our study (25%). Some of the eligibility criteria was to ensure that the couples in our study were at similar points in their relationship (e.g., getting married with no children) and had not previously experienced marriage or divorce.