The effect of collaborative counseling on perceived infertility-related stress in infertile women undergoing IVF

Infertility is considered as a crisis in life and can cause severe stress for infertile couples. A variety of approaches has been suggested to manage this kind of stress in couples. This study addressed the effect of collaborative counseling on perceived infertility-related stress in infertile women undergoing IVF in Mashhad.

In this clinical trial, 60 women with primary infertility were selected from Montaserieh Infertility Research Center by convenient sampling and were randomly divided into intervention (29 cases) and control (31 people) groups. Women in intervention group received counseling in five meetings with collaboration of midwife, gynecologist and clinical psychologist. Control group were counseled routinely. Perceived infertility-related stress was measured at the beginning and embryo transfer day using Newton Fertility Problem Inventory that has five subscales. Mann-Whitney test and independent t-test were used for data analysis by SPSS software version 14.

A significant difference was found between two groups in terms of total perceived infertility-related stress score (p<0.048). The amount of stress reduction in intervention group was nearly 3.6 times more than the control group. There was also a significant difference between two groups regarding two the subscales of Fertility Problem Inventory including social concerns (p<0.031) and need for parenthood (p<0.002).

Collaborative counseling can decrease the infertile women's perceived infertility-related stress. Thus, it could be suggested as one of the stress management strategies in infertile women undergoing IVF.