Sexual Self-Concept in Fertile and Infertile Women: A Comparative Study

Sexual self-concept has a considerable impact on mental and sexual health. However, the relationship between sexual self-concept and infertility is unknown. This study aimed to compare sexual self-concept betweenfertile and infertile women. This cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 250 fertile and 250 infertilewomen who had referred to 9 health centers affiliated to Medical universities in Tehran and Royan infertility treatmentclinics in Tehran, Iran in 2017. Sexual self-concept was measured using the Multidimensional Sexual Self-ConceptQuestionnaire (MSSCQ) consisting of 20 subscales. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed to comparesexual self-concept between the two groups. The mean age of fertile and infertile women was 34 ± 5.62 and 29.74 ± 5.29 years, respectively. The highestscore in both groups was for the sexual self-schemata subscale (mean score for fertile=3.21 ± 0.68 and for infertile=3.42 ± 0.62). The lowest score was for sexual-depression subscale (mean score for fertile=0.59 ± 0.81 and forinfertile=0.61 ± 0.76). After adjustment for the age of each subject, the husband's age, duration of marriage, and women’seducation, we analyzed the sexual-satisfaction, the power-other sexual control, and the fear-of-sex subscales,which were found to be significantly lower in infertile women (p <0.05). No other significant differences between thefertile and infertile groups were observed. We observed significant differences between fertile and infertile women in terms of sexual-satisfaction,the power-other sexual control, and the fear-of-sex, but not in other sexual self-concept subscales. These findings suggestthat there is need to improve sexual self-concept among both fertile and infertile women. Indeed implementationof educational and counseling programs by reproductive health specialists might play an important role in enhancingsexual self-concept among these populations.