A Comparative Study of Fertile and Infertile Women's Mental Health and Sexual Problems

This study was carried out with the aim of comparing the mental health and sexual problems of fertile and infertile women. The subjects consisted of 45 fertile and 45 infertile women referred to the infertility treatment clinic at Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, who participated in the study by completing the Golombok-Rust Inventory of Sexual State Questionnaire (GRISS-F) and the Mental Health Inventory (MHI). Pearson correlation coefficients, t-test for independent groups, ANOVA, and Tukey test were used for data analyses. Infertile women showed lower levels of psychological well-being (p<0.001) and higher levels of psychological stress (p<0.001) than fertile women. Also, infertile women suffer from more sexual prob- lems than fertile women. This study also revealed a positive correlation between the infertility period and infertile women’s sexual problems. Among the three groups of infertile women (i.e. women who them-selves were the cause of infertility, women whose husbands were the cause of infertility, and women with infertility of unknown cause) no significant difference was observed with regard to psychological well-being, psychological stress, and sexual problems. Measures of psychological well-being and sexual problems are different among fertile and infertile women.