Quality of Life of Infertile Couples in relation to Marital Adjustment, Factors related to Infertility, and Demographic Characteristics

Abstract

Background & Aims: Quality of life of infertile couples is affected by changes happening in their life. Knowledge about the quality of life, marital adjustment, and underlying factors of infertile couples is an important part of social health information. Such information can be used for developing health promotion programs by family counselors. The aim of this study was to predict the quality of life of infertile couples based on marital adjustment, factors related to infertility, and background characteristics. Materials & Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, 131 women and 79 men referred to an infertility center in East Azerbaijan were recruited using a convenience method. Data were collected using the infertile women’s quality of life and Spiner’s marital adjustment questionnaires. Regression analysis was used for data analysis via the SPSS16. Results: The mean age of the female and male participants were 35.74 ± 6.11 years and 32.45 ± 5.72 years, respectively. Of variables with a p-value less than 0.1 that entered the regression analysis, marital adjustment, gender, and insurance accounted for 78% of the observed variance in the quality of life of the infertile couples. Conclusions: It was revealed that the variables of this study had important impacts on the infertile couples’ quality of life. Therefore, holding consultation programs and conducting more studies are necessary for improving the couples’ quality of life and promoting sexual and marital adjustment in infertile couples. Removing underlying problems by interventional studies are suggested to modify couples’ quality of life.

Keywords

• quality of life
• infertility
• adjustment