[Psychosocial responses of infertile couples attending an assisted reproduction program]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate gender differences in the psychosocial responses of 85 couples who attended the assisted reproduction program at Chung Shan Medical & Dental College Hospital from September 1991 to February 1992. The infertile couples were investigated by a self-administered structured questionnaire about demographic data, infertility history, and psychosocial responses and 75 couples completed the questionnaire. The average age of husbands was 35.0 years/and wives, 31.6 years. The average duration of infertility and treatment was 52.7 and 34.6 months, respectively. Parental expectation was the leading source of stress for men, while women counted being unable to meet childbearing demands as the main source of stress. Infertile women showed a higher psychosocial distress than their partners on the global measures and all the subscales of the infertility questionnaire and psychiatric symptoms test. Except for hostility, the differences between couples in subscales of self-esteem/body image, guilty, and all psychiatric symptoms reached statistical significance (p < 0.05). Among varied psychosocial responses of infertile couples, concordant response was demonstrated only in response to sexuality and physical condition. We consistently conclude with previous reports that infertile women showed a higher level of distress than their spouses, and that men and women displayed different psychosocial responses to infertility.