The Relationship between Infertility Stress and the Quality of the Marital Relationship of Infertile Women: The Mediating Role of Spiritual Experiences

Infertility is one of the most important life crises that lead to psychological problems, stressful experiences and reduced quality of marital relationship. So the aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of spiritual experiences in the relationship between infertility stress and marital relationship quality of infertile women.

This was a descriptive-correlational study of structural equations type. From the statistical population of this study, which included all women referring to the Infertility Center of Birjand in 2020, a sample of 120 people was selected by convenience sampling method and they answered the infertility stress questionnaires of Newton et al, Underwood and Teresi spiritual experiences and the quality of the Rust et al.’s marital relationship. Structural modeling and partial least squares algorithm (PLS) were used for data analysis. All the ethical considerations were observed in the present study and the authors reported no conflict of interests.

The results showed that the relationship between infertility stress and spiritual experiences and the relationship between spiritual experiences and the quality of marital relationship was inverse and significant, but the relationship between infertility stress and the quality of marital relationship was direct and significant (P<0.01). The results further showed that spiritual experiences have a mediating role in the relationship between infertility stress and the quality of marital life in infertile women (P=0.01).

Considering the role of spiritual experiences in the relationship between infertility stress and the quality of infertile women's marital relationship, it is essential for health system officials and managers to pay attention to the role of effective factors in increasing the quality of infertile women's marital relationship.