The role defeat and infertility stress in marital quality mediator by spiritual experiences in infertile women

Infertility is one of the bitter experiences of life that causes many psychological problems for the individual and his family. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a model of the relationship between defeat and infertility stress with the quality of marital relationship mediated by spiritual experiences in infertile women in Birjand.

The present study was a descriptive-correlation of structural equations. A sample of 120 infertile women by convenience sampling method who volunteered to participate in the study, were selected from women referring to the infertility center in Birjand in 2020. Research instruments included the Gilbert & Allen (1998) defeat Scale, Newton et al.'s (1999) infertility stress, Andrew & Fear (2002) spiritual experiences, and the quality of the right-wing marital relationship (et al. 1986). Pearson correlation test and structural modeling software and partial least squares algorithm (PLS) and software (SPSS) version 22 were used to analyze the data.

The results showed that the effect of defeat, infertility stress and spiritual experiences on the quality of direct and significant marital relationship was (p <0.01). Also, spiritual experiences played a mediating role in the relationship between defeat and infertility stress with the quality of the marital relationship (p <0.01); And the research model had sufficient fit.

Based on the results of the study, it can be said that infertility stress, defeat and spiritual experiences are effective factors in the quality of the marital relationship of infertile women.