The Effect of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on the Infertility Stress and Marital Burnout in Infertile Women

Background and

Infertility is a major concern for public health and is considered as one of the most important crises in life, which leads to psychological problems such as infertility stress and marital boredom. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on infertility stress and marital burnout in infertile women.

In this clinical trial, 43 infertile women were selected from specialized obstetrics and gynecology clinic in Sari, 2023. They were recruited using non-random and convenience sampling. They were then randomly divided into two groups of intervention (CBT, n=15) and control (without any treatment, n=15). The CBT was implemented according to the Bieling protocol during weekly sessions of 45 minutes for twelve weeks. The participants were evaluated at pre-test, post-test and 45days follow-up using infertility stress by Newton et al (1999) scale and marital burnout by Pines (2005) scale. Data analysis was performed applying repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS V24.

In the experimental group, the average scores in the three phases of pre-test, post-test and follow-up for infertility stress were (200.866±19.471), (146.066±12.719), and (153.066±16.086), respectively, and for marital burnout were (97.533±12.052), (67.065±5.750), and (74.666±8.286), respectively, which had a significant decrease in the two stages of post-test and follow-up compared to the pre-test stage (P<0.05), but no significant difference was observed in the control group (P>0.05). Also the results showed that cognitive-behavioral therapy in infertile women reduced infertility stress (F=24.700, P=0.000) and marital burnout (F=146.146, P=0.001).

The results indicated the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in reducing infertility stress and marital burnout in infertile women, which can be used along with other medical treatment methods in infertility clinics to reduce the psychological needs and problems of infertile women.