“In cycles of dreams, despair, and desperation:” Research perspectives on infertility specific distress in patients undergoing fertility treatments

Abstract

“Emotional distress in infertility” is a broad expression that loosely denotes anxiety, depression, grief, crisis, depleting psychological well-being, and all forms of affective and interpersonal disturbances faced by individuals with infertility. The distress is usually associated with involuntary childlessness as it is an unwelcoming event. The developmental crisis associated with childlessness poses a threat to one's sense of self at all levels (individual, family and social). Distress may begin before or during treatments as a person experiences the loss of control over attaining parenthood, anxiety or dejection after the diagnosis, treatments, its complications particularly its limited success rates. This paper reviews the basic concepts, theoretical models related to infertility specific distress (ISD). It elaborates on the effects of individual and treatment-specific variables on ISD with special highlights gathered from the national and international research.

Care seeking behaviour of infertile couples attending a government infertility clinic in Delhi

“…These finding were consistent with other studies. 23,[29][30][31] 80% couples in this study had experienced at most 5 years of infertility duration, similar toother studies where a majority of couples had infertility of 2-6 years' duration. 23,32 Majority of the couples in the study, first preferred an allopathic treatment followed by informal treatment.…”

Working With Infertile Couples Seeking Assisted Reproduction: An Interpretative Phenomenological Study With Infertility Care Providers

“…As also acknowledged by other authors (e.g., Grill, 2015), mental health professionals have the responsibility to help fertility care providers manage "difficult patients" and improve their capacity of establishing an empathic connection with them. In this regard, mental health professionals can work with providers to enhance their communication skills, as well as their understanding of the negative feelings related to infertility (fear, anguish, frustration, sense of inadequacy) underneath patients' expressions of anger, lack of trust, and controlling behaviors (Patel et al, 2018). As suggested by Smorti and Smorti (2013), psychologists may also help providers understand more in depth the pathways to parenthood of couples who underwent ART, considering the specificities of this transition in the context of infertility (for instance, as regards to challenges and obstacles, sense of victory when the pregnancy is achieved, medicalization, and controlling behaviors).…”

An Epistemological Perspective of Integrated Multidisciplinary Treatment When Dealing With Infertile Women With a Parenthood Goal: The Importance of Matterpsychic Perspective

“…The search for a pregnancy that results in the diagnosis of infertility and even more so of sterility can cause a crisis of such magnitude that it can be defined as an “identity” crisis ( Thorn, 2009 ). It is the body image that has been damaged, with repercussions exactly on the level of identity and gender identity ( Salerno and Piccolo, 2006 ; Rosner, 2012 ; Patel et al, 2018 ). The experience of identity loss takes place on several levels: in genetic continuity; in the image of oneself as a fertile person; and regarding the possibility of pregnancy and childbirth.…”