Efficacy of Well-being Therapy on Stress of Infertility and Rumination among Women with Infertility

Infertility as a pregnancy failure after one year of regular sexual intercourse without contraception can cause various psychological problems. The present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of well-being therapy on the stress of infertility and rumination among women with infertility.

The present study was quasi-experimental with a pretest, posttest, control group, and a two-month follow-up period. For this purpose, a sample of 60 infertile patients from Hazrat Maryam Infertility Clinic in Sari was randomly selected and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received well-being therapy in groups within eight, 90-minute sessions, and the control group did not receive any intervention. The tools used in this study included the Infertility Stress questionnaire and the mental rumination questionnaire. Data were analyzed by covariance analysis using SPSS software version 22.

The results showed that in the experimental group, the mean (SD) infertility stress score decreased from 153.2 (5.9) in the pretest to 140.5 (8.1) in the posttest and 136.1 (7.2) in the follow-up stage (P<0.001). In the control group, the mean (SD) infertility stress score increased from 151.2 (13.1) in pretest to 150.9 (13.7) in posttest and 156.2 (7.4) in the follow-up stage, which was not significant. The mean (SD) rumination score decreased from 48.7 (7.6) in the pretest to 41.4 (5.8) in the posttest and 41.1 (5.6) in the follow-up stage (P<0.001). In the control group, the mean (SD) rumination score increased from 49.1 (7.4) in the pretest to 48.1 (7.7) in the posttest and 47.6 (7.5) in the follow-up stage, which was not significant.

It can be concluded that well-being therapy reduces infertility to stress and rumination among women with infertility.