Patterns of suffering and social interactions in infertile men: 12 months after unsuccessful treatment

Abstract

Research shows that men diagnosed with male factor infertility experience more suffering than men with infertility due to other causes, and that it is socially unfavourable to be diagnosed with male factor infertility resulting in secrecy surrounding diagnosis, sometimes to the point that women take the blame for the couples' infertility. We investigated mental and physical health, support, and psychological and social stress in men (N = 256) prior to and after 12 months of unsuccessful treatment according to their diagnosis: unexplained, female factor, male factor, or mixed. Results suggest that men do not differ by diagnosis on any of the variables tested. When treatment was not successful, all men showed increased suffering in the form of decreased mental health, increased physical stress reactions, decreased social support, and increased negative social stress over time. These findings indicate that involuntary childlessness is difficult for all men, and is not dependent on with whom the cause lies. There was also a high level of agreement between couples and medical records on the cause of the couples' fertility arguing against the idea that women take the blame for male factor infertility.

Couples’ discontinuation of fertility treatments: a longitudinal study on demographic, biomedical, and psychosocial risk factors

“…However, this latter study has a reduced number of discontinuers comparing with continuers, which can create a bias in the predicting power of the analysis. Although infertility is also burdensome for men [55][56][57], men tend to suppress their emotions about infertility more than women [58][59][60] and tend to assume the main role in supporting their wives during the infertility process [58]. Clinically depressed women, by definition, may not have the emotional strength to pursue treatment, and their partners may encourage them to forgo their infertility process-related burden, leading to discontinuation.…”

Psychological and social aspects of infertility in men: an overview of the evidence and implications for psychologically informed clinical care and future research

“…In a subsequent study using the same measure 71 in men who had repeat infertility assessment visits at least 6 months apart, these authors found that distress increased during this time interval in men who had been undergoing prolonged treatment or who had experienced treatment failure. Peronace et al 39 followed 256 men in Denmark who were assessed prior to treatment initiation and after 12 months of unsuccessful treatment. Regardless of the cause of infertility, distress increased significantly when treatment was unsuccessful.…”

“…Data from the Copenhagen Multi-Centre Psychosocial Infertility (COMPI) research programme revealed no differences between men's scores on the Fertility Problem Stress Inventory 37 or the Mental Health Component of the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) 38 at initiation of treatment whether infertility was attributable to male, female, mixed or unexplained causes. 39 Lee et al 40 used the same classification system for 138 couples presenting for treatment in Taiwan, China. They assessed psychological functioning using the Chinese Infertility Questionnaire 41 and found no differences in men's self-esteem or guilt between groups.…”

The Importance of Fatherhood to U.S. Married and Cohabiting Men

“…Therefore it is useful to review relevant infertility research to frame our study of the importance of fatherhood in men's lives. This literature suggests that infertility is stressful for men (Carmeli & Birenbaum-Carmeli, 1994;Peronace, Boivin, & Schmidt, 2007) and can often lead to grief about not producing offspring, a loss of a sense of masculinity, and a sense of personal inadequacy (Webb & Daniluk, 1999). Other work implies that men see the failure to achieve fatherhood as a threat to masculinity because of their inability to reproduce (Beutel et al, 1998;Greil, 1991;Hjelmstedt et al, 1999).…”