Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy and Good Enough Sex Model on sexual attitude and sexual satisfaction in married infertile men and women

Infertility targets marital identity and can disrupt the natural course of a couple's sex life. Narrative Therapy (NT) and Good Enough Sex Model (GESM) are specific methods to promote mental-sexual health. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the effectiveness of these two methods on the attitude and sexual satisfaction of infertile couples.

This was a quasi-experimental study using pretest- posttest design with a control group. Forty-eight clients referred to urology and genecology office in Tehran, Iran, with primary infertility problem were studied. They were selected through convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to three groups of 16 individuals such as NT, GESM and control groups. The content of NT and GESM was performed separately for the experimental groups for 4 sessions of 90 minutes. To collect data, the demographic questionnaire, Dehghani’ attitude questionnaire and Hudson’ sexual satisfaction questionnaire, was used. Data analysis was performed by SPSS software version 26 and descriptive statistics and analysis of covariance, Bonferroni post hoc test and mixed analysis of variance were used.

The results of analysis of covariance showed that both treatments had a significant effect on sexual attitude in the post-test compared to the control group (P <0.001). Bonferroni test indicates the superiority of NT over the GESM in promoting sexual attitude (P <0.05), and the greater impact of the GESM than the NT in promoting sexual satisfaction of infertile couples was observed (P <0.05). The results of repeated measures analysis also showed the persistence of effects in the follow-up stage (P <0.05).

The findings showed that the narrative therapy and the good enough sex model, are two appropriate interventional program to promote attitude and sexual satisfaction in infertile married people.