Psychosocial Issues in Women with Primary Infertility: A Psychometric Study

Abstract

To highlight the cultural-specific experience and expression of psychosocial issues of infertility in females in a collectivistic culture and use them to develop an assessment measure. Methods: The mixed method research design was used. The research was carried out during August- December, 2019 and data was collected from different government and private hospitals and clinics of city Lahore. Purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data from participants. Initially, 21 women with primary infertility were interviewed to generate the items related to psychosocial issues of infertility. During the main study phase a sample of 142 women with the age range of 19 - 41years; diagnosed with primary infertility were given self-administered questionnaires of Psychosocial Issues Scale (PIS), Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) and a demographic form. Results: Exploratory Factor analysis revealed three distinct factors of Psychosocial Issues Scale namely Feelings of Apprehension, Depressive Mood and Feelings of Rejection. No of items in each subscale ranged from 8 to 12 items. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale was found to be .94 and concurrent validity was .85. Logistic regression revealed increased marriage years to be significant predictors of these issues (p < 0.05). Conclusion: As a result of this study a 31-item self-report measure of psychosocial issues of women with primary infertility, having sound psychometric properties was developed.