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Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients

By surveying men who are currently infertile (N = 251) and men who are potentially infertile (i.e., men with cancer; N = 195), the mental health consequences of reproductive masculinity, or the cultural assumption that men are virile and should be fathers, were investigated. There was no difference...

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Autores principales: Miner, Skye A., Daumler, Davis, Chan, Peter, Gupta, Abha, Lo, Kirk, Zelkowitz, Phyllis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6775564/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30585112
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1557988318820396
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author Miner, Skye A.
Daumler, Davis
Chan, Peter
Gupta, Abha
Lo, Kirk
Zelkowitz, Phyllis
author_facet Miner, Skye A.
Daumler, Davis
Chan, Peter
Gupta, Abha
Lo, Kirk
Zelkowitz, Phyllis
author_sort Miner, Skye A.
collection PubMed
description By surveying men who are currently infertile (N = 251) and men who are potentially infertile (i.e., men with cancer; N = 195), the mental health consequences of reproductive masculinity, or the cultural assumption that men are virile and should be fathers, were investigated. There was no difference in depression levels between these two groups when controlling for demographic variables, suggesting that both groups of men have similar mental health needs. Since gendered notions of masculinity also suggest that men do not want to discuss their fertility health, their desire for online fertility-related social support was assessed. These findings suggest that most men do want to talk to others about fertility, which indicates that there is a need for more fertility-related social support. This research challenges some conceptions regarding masculinity, as men revealed an interest in accessing online social support related to fertility.
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spelling pubmed-67755642019-10-16 Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients Miner, Skye A. Daumler, Davis Chan, Peter Gupta, Abha Lo, Kirk Zelkowitz, Phyllis Am J Mens Health Mental Health and Wellbeing By surveying men who are currently infertile (N = 251) and men who are potentially infertile (i.e., men with cancer; N = 195), the mental health consequences of reproductive masculinity, or the cultural assumption that men are virile and should be fathers, were investigated. There was no difference in depression levels between these two groups when controlling for demographic variables, suggesting that both groups of men have similar mental health needs. Since gendered notions of masculinity also suggest that men do not want to discuss their fertility health, their desire for online fertility-related social support was assessed. These findings suggest that most men do want to talk to others about fertility, which indicates that there is a need for more fertility-related social support. This research challenges some conceptions regarding masculinity, as men revealed an interest in accessing online social support related to fertility. SAGE Publications 2018-12-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6775564/ /pubmed/30585112 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1557988318820396 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Mental Health and Wellbeing
Miner, Skye A.
Daumler, Davis
Chan, Peter
Gupta, Abha
Lo, Kirk
Zelkowitz, Phyllis
Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients
title Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients
title_full Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients
title_fullStr Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients
title_full_unstemmed Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients
title_short Masculinity, Mental Health, and Desire for Social Support Among Male Cancer and Infertility Patients
title_sort masculinity, mental health, and desire for social support among male cancer and infertility patients
topic Mental Health and Wellbeing
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6775564/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30585112
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1557988318820396
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