The role of cognitive representation, personality and cause of infertility in predicting psychological wellbeing of infertile women

Aim and

Although infertility is categorized as a physiological disorder at the first level but its experience has a huge psychological and social aspect. The present study aims at determining the predictive power of cognitive representation of illness, personality and the cause of infertility in the psychological wellbeing in infertile women.Methods and Materials: 60 infertile women referred to Tehran Women General Hospital were selected by purposeful sampling method. The subjects filled out the Demographic and medical questionnaire, Illness Perception Questionnaire- Revised (IPQ-R), Type D Scale (DS14), Flourishing scale and Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE). For statistical analysis of research data, stepwise multivariate regression analysis was used.

Results obtained from stepwise regression analysis indicated that among the studied variables of the research, timeline (acute/chronic), consequences and social inhibition have more predictive power in explaining flourishing variance and could explain flourishing by 47%. Timeline (acute/chronic) and identity have more predictive power in explaining positive experience variance and could explain positive experience by 37% and negative affectivity has more predictive power in explaining negative experience variance and could explain negative experience by 14%.

The findings of the study show that flourishing has a negative meaningful relationship with timeline (acute/chronic), consequences and social inhibition; positive experience has a negative meaningful relationship with Timeline (acute/chronic) and identity and negative experience has a positive meaningful relationship with negative affectivity. Hence, programming for cognitive and emotional interventions is assumed necessary in clinical interventions for infertility.