Hope and Happiness in Infertile Women Undergoing Assisted Reproductive Therapy (ART): The Effect of Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs)

Infertility can have many negative psycho-social consequences including depression, anxiety, and feelings of shame in couples, especially women.

This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions (PPIs) in increasing hope and happiness in women undergoing assisted reproductive therapy (ART).

This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The research population consisted of all infertile women who had been admitted to Omid Royan Infertility Center in Arak, Iran, in 2022. The participants were a sample of 40 infertile women undergoing ART who were selected through convenience sampling and then they were placed into two intervention and control groups (each group with 20 members) through permuted block randomization. Afterward, the participants in the intervention group received PPIs for 10 sessions. However, the controls received no intervention. The data were collected through the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) and Adult Hope Scale (AHS). Finally, the collected data were analyzed through one-way ANCOVA with SPSS-26 software.

The data showed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the variables of hope (p<0.001) and happiness (p<0.001) for the participants of the two groups in the post-test stage, while this difference was not significant in the control group (p>0.05).

Psycho-social interventions can be implemented as a part of infertility treatments along with medical treatments and as complementary treatments for infertile couples in regular meetings. Thus, health and medical professionals can provide their supportive consultations in time to reduce the negative psycho-social effects of infertility.