Exploring emotional aspects of infertility in women from two countries

A plethora of studies have examined the prevalence and severity of anxiety and depression in relation to infertility, while ignoring social and cultural factors. The aim of this cross-cultural study is to examine emotions related to quality of life, perceived social support, depression and anxiety in two groups of young women with identical demographic characteristics (age, education, and duration of infertility - years to have a child) who experience fertility problems in two neighboring countries, Greece and Bulgaria. A total of one hundred forty-eight women from both countries completed a demographics questionnaire along with the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the Subscale regarding State Anxiety from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and some chosen questions from the Fertility Quality of Life (FertiQol). Seventy-four female participants from Northern Greece and seventy-four female participants from Southern Bulgaria were examined. The two groups of women did not show any statistically significant differences regarding their age, years of education, and the years needed in order to have their first child. The women were not on any type of medical treatment for their infertility problem at the time of the completion of the questionnaires. Results indicated that women in both countries did not have different levels of anxiety and depression regarding their infertility, but they had statistically different self-reported perceptions of social support and related to infertility quality of life. Future research should further investigate infertility and its relation to other emotional variables in larger samples of varying age ranges from different cultural environments.