Quality of life and its different domains in fertile and infertile women

Assessment of Quality Of Life(QOL) is one of the most active areas in modern studies. QOL is a term to describe individuals' health and affective, social and physical wellbeing and also to demonstrate their ability for accomplishing daily routine tasks. This study aimed to compare QOL domains in fertile and infertile women.

Forty-four infertile women referred to Isfahan Clinic of Fertility and Infertility and 35 fertile women were randomly selected. Participants' level of education considered to be at least graduation from intermediary school & their range of age to be 20 to 40. QOL questionnaire was administered to all participants. This questionnaire consists of 55 questions which assess the QOL in 5 domains namely: physical status, psychological and affective status, perceived stress, enjoying life and perceived overall QOL. Data analyses were done by SPSS software.

Compared to fertile women, QOL mean score was significantly lower in infertile ones(p=0.02). In the domains of physical status, perceived stress and perceived overall QOL, the two groups showed no significant difference (p > 0.05), but infertile women group had a significantly lower score on the domains of psychological- effective status(p = 0.02) and enjoying life(p = 0.0001).

QOL is one of the important issues to be addressed in infertility counseling.