Sexual self-care in fertile and infertile women: a comparative study

Sexual self-care is an emerging concept in reproductive health. In addition to harm reduction, self-care plays a key role in promoting physical, mental, and social health, especially in societies where sexual taboos exist. This study aims to compare the sexual self-care among fertile and infertile women in Ardabil city.

This cross-sectional study included 100 fertile women visiting health centers and 100 infertile women from the Ardabil Infertility Treatment Center, aged 15-49 years, between May 2024 and February 2025. Samples were selected through convenience sampling based on inclusion criteria. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and Female Sexual Health Self-care (FSHS) questionnaire, and analyzed in SPSS version 26 using chi-square test, independent t-test, and ANOVA.

Female and male factors were reported as causes of infertility in 59% and 41%, respectively. The mean self-care score of the fertile group was 57.93 ± 15.42 and for the infertile group was 60.62 ± 13.14. There was no significant difference in overall sexual self-care scores between the two groups, but when source of health-related information was considered as a confounding factor, the results related to total score of the instrument became significant (p-value = 0.04). The highest score in both groups was related to the domain of sexual health promotion, with a higher mean score of infertile women (76.13 ± 15.66) compared to the fertile group (62.09 ± 19.83), and there was a significant difference between the two groups (p < 0.001).

The findings of this study indicated that there is no significant difference in sexual self-care between fertile and infertile women, despite variations in sources of health-related information. Therefore, it can be concluded that sexual self-care is a multidimensional phenomenon influenced by various factors and cannot be explained solely based on fertility status.