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Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis

Fertility-related stress can negatively impact infertile couples’ quality of life (QoL). Most previous studies have concentrated on the effects of stress and infertility on individual persons, especially women, though infertility affects the QoL of both spouses. Our research aimed to investigate the...

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Autores principales: Dourou, Panagiota, Gourounti, Kleanthi, Lykeridou, Aikaterini, Gaitanou, Konstantina, Petrogiannis, Nikolaos, Sarantaki, Antigoni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9955447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36826165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/clinpract13010023
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author Dourou, Panagiota
Gourounti, Kleanthi
Lykeridou, Aikaterini
Gaitanou, Konstantina
Petrogiannis, Nikolaos
Sarantaki, Antigoni
author_facet Dourou, Panagiota
Gourounti, Kleanthi
Lykeridou, Aikaterini
Gaitanou, Konstantina
Petrogiannis, Nikolaos
Sarantaki, Antigoni
author_sort Dourou, Panagiota
collection PubMed
description Fertility-related stress can negatively impact infertile couples’ quality of life (QoL). Most previous studies have concentrated on the effects of stress and infertility on individual persons, especially women, though infertility affects the QoL of both spouses. Our research aimed to investigate the roles of infertility and stress in couples’ quality of life as a single unit. The research sample consisted of 202 spouses, i.e., 101 couples, with a mean age of 39.5 years (SD = 4.9 years) undergoing fertility treatment at Athens Naval Hospital-Assisted Reproduction Unit. Data collection was completed via self-administered questionnaires: the FertiQoL International Questionnaire for measuring the quality of life in infertility and The Demographic Information and Medical History Questionnaire. Data collection was conducted between January and November 2022. Quantitative variables are expressed as mean values (standard deviation) and as median interquartile range, and qualitative variables are expressed as absolute and relative frequencies. Pearson’s (r) and Spearman’s (rho) correlations coefficients were used to explore the association of two continuous variables. Multiple linear regression analysis was used with dependence on the Ferti-QoL’s subscales. The regression equation included terms for participants’ demographics and information from their medical history. Adjusted regression coefficients (β) with standard errors (SE) were computed from the results of the linear regression analyses. All reported p values are two-tailed. Statistical significance was set to p < 0.05, and analyses were conducted using SPSS statistical software (version 22.0). We found that greater anxiety and depression were significantly associated with worse quality of life. Additionally, quality of life, according to Ferti-QoL, was significantly worse in women, participants with a high level of education, those with greater depressive symptoms, and those with greater state scores. Findings of this study highlight the need for implementing interventions of supportive care methods, counseling, stress reduction methods, and improving the fertility-related quality of life of infertile couples.
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spelling pubmed-99554472023-02-25 Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis Dourou, Panagiota Gourounti, Kleanthi Lykeridou, Aikaterini Gaitanou, Konstantina Petrogiannis, Nikolaos Sarantaki, Antigoni Clin Pract Article Fertility-related stress can negatively impact infertile couples’ quality of life (QoL). Most previous studies have concentrated on the effects of stress and infertility on individual persons, especially women, though infertility affects the QoL of both spouses. Our research aimed to investigate the roles of infertility and stress in couples’ quality of life as a single unit. The research sample consisted of 202 spouses, i.e., 101 couples, with a mean age of 39.5 years (SD = 4.9 years) undergoing fertility treatment at Athens Naval Hospital-Assisted Reproduction Unit. Data collection was completed via self-administered questionnaires: the FertiQoL International Questionnaire for measuring the quality of life in infertility and The Demographic Information and Medical History Questionnaire. Data collection was conducted between January and November 2022. Quantitative variables are expressed as mean values (standard deviation) and as median interquartile range, and qualitative variables are expressed as absolute and relative frequencies. Pearson’s (r) and Spearman’s (rho) correlations coefficients were used to explore the association of two continuous variables. Multiple linear regression analysis was used with dependence on the Ferti-QoL’s subscales. The regression equation included terms for participants’ demographics and information from their medical history. Adjusted regression coefficients (β) with standard errors (SE) were computed from the results of the linear regression analyses. All reported p values are two-tailed. Statistical significance was set to p < 0.05, and analyses were conducted using SPSS statistical software (version 22.0). We found that greater anxiety and depression were significantly associated with worse quality of life. Additionally, quality of life, according to Ferti-QoL, was significantly worse in women, participants with a high level of education, those with greater depressive symptoms, and those with greater state scores. Findings of this study highlight the need for implementing interventions of supportive care methods, counseling, stress reduction methods, and improving the fertility-related quality of life of infertile couples. MDPI 2023-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9955447/ /pubmed/36826165 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/clinpract13010023 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Dourou, Panagiota
Gourounti, Kleanthi
Lykeridou, Aikaterini
Gaitanou, Konstantina
Petrogiannis, Nikolaos
Sarantaki, Antigoni
Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis
title Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis
title_full Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis
title_fullStr Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis
title_full_unstemmed Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis
title_short Quality of Life among Couples with a Fertility Related Diagnosis
title_sort quality of life among couples with a fertility related diagnosis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9955447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36826165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/clinpract13010023
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