Recruiting

Get Better Together

Sponsor:

Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine

Code:

NCT07096271

Conditions

Emotion Regulation

Relationship Conflict

Suicide Risk

Alcohol Use

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Get Better Together (GBT)

Study Details

Brief summary:

This study is testing a program called Get Better Together, a relationship education program designed to help military couples effectively navigate life stressors as a team. The goal is to find out if attending Get Better Together improves mental health and relationship skills, and reduces problems like alcohol misuse, aggression, and suicide risk. Couples who join the study will be randomly placed into one of two groups. One group will attend Get Better Together at a weekend retreat. The other group will continue their usual activities and later receive access to an online relationship education program. All participants will complete surveys before the retreat and again 2, 4, and 6 months later.

Conditions

Emotion Regulation

Relationship Conflict

Suicide Risk

Alcohol Use

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Study ID

NCT07096271

Start date

Sep 22, 2025

Status verified date

Sep, 2025

Completion date

Jul, 2028

Anticipated

Primary completion date

May, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Couple is in a committed romantic relationship of at least six months
  • At least one partner is a military Service member on active duty
  • Both partners are age 18 or older
  • Couple has not previously attended a relationship enrichment retreat or workshop together (e.g., CREDO, Strong Bonds, BSRT). This does not include couples therapy or pre-marital counseling.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • One or both partners decline to provide informed consent
  • Required command endorsement for retreat attendance is not received (for Service members E-6 and below)
  • Couple is unable or unwilling to attend any of the scheduled retreats during the study period

Study Design

Enrollment

1000 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Prevention

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Get Better Together (GBT)

Participants assigned to this arm will attend an in-person weekend retreat where they receive approximately 10 hours of structured curriculum focused on equipping couples with evidence informed strategies to cope with stress as a team, improve emotion regulation, and reduce conflict.

GBT includes modules on emotion awareness, acceptance, reappraisal, constructive problem solving, and communication. The format integrates didactic material, videos, group discussions, and couples' skill practice. All materials and delivery methods have been tailored for military populations based on extensive stakeholder input and field testing.

no intervention: Control Group

Couples in the control group will not receive any structured relationship enrichment programming (e.g., retreats or workshops) during the 6-month follow-up period. After the 6-month follow-up period, couples in the control group will be provided access to ePREP, a self-paced on line version of the PREP curriculum.

Interventions

Get Better Together (GBT)

Get Better Together is a couple-based, primary prevention program designed to reduce risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, problematic alcohol use, and intimate partner violence by addressing two transdiagnostic drivers: emotion dysregulation and relationship conflict. The intervention is an adaptation of the empirically supported Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP), modified in collaboration with military stakeholders to meet the unique cultural and contextual needs of military couples.

The GBT curriculum includes approximately 10 hours of structured content presented using didactic instruction, video demonstrations, group discussions, and guided couple exercises. Skills focus on interpersonal emotion regulation (e.g., emotion identification, acceptance, reappraisal, and problem solving) and evidence-based communication strategies (e.g., structured communication strategies, conflict de-escalation).

Primary outcome measure

  • Suicide Cognitions [ Time Frame: Baseline, 2-month, 4-month, and 6-month follow-up ]
  • Alcohol Misuse [ Time Frame: Baseline, 2-month, 4-month, and 6-month follow-up ]
  • Intimate Partner Violence [ Time Frame: Baseline, 2-month, 4-month, and 6-month follow-up ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Sarah Carter, Ph.D.

301-400-5675GetBetterTogether@usuhs.edu

Locations

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Recruiting

Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20814

Contacts

Sarah Carter, Ph.D

301-400-5675GetBetterTogether@usuhs.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine

Last update posted

Oct 20, 2025

Last verified

Sep, 2025

Keywords

  • Behavioral: Get Better Together (GBT)
  • military
  • intimate relationships
  • suicide prevention
  • primary prevention
  • emotion regulation
  • relationship education
  • interpersonal emotion regulation

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine on 2025-10-20.