Comparing Spiritual Health and Quality of Life among Fertile and Infertile Women

Infertility is a stressful phenomenon and has psycho-social aspects. This study was carried out with the aim of comparing the quality of life and spiritual health and their different dimensions among fertile and infertile women in Ilam city.
It was a cross- sectional, comparative study. The sample consisted of 200 married 15-49 year old women who referred to obstetricians during the second half of 2014. Data was collected by SF36 and spiritual health questionnaire (SWB) and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS-PC (v. 16).
The findings showed that there has been a significant difference between the mean scores of all assessed dimensions and the spiritual health and quality of life of fertile women was better than infertile women. There were also significant relationships between physical health and spiritual health (r=0.332), existential health and physical health (r=0.348), and existential health and quality of life (r=0.281) among fertile women.
Considering the low levels of spiritual health and quality of life among infertile women, it is recommended that obstetricians, gynecologists and midwives, pay special attention not only to therapeutic aspects but also to psychological and social issues related to infertile women.