ABSTRACT
Background: The struggles that childless women face today pose a danger to their quality of life. This might be a result of the socio-cultural beliefs about reproduction in developing nations, particularly Nigeria. Values and ways of life in our society today may make psychological issues worse. The purpose of this study is to assess and compare the psychological impact, social experiences and coping strategies employed by women with infertility attending the HRRP (Human Reproductive Research Programme) clinic and fertile women attending antenatal clinic in a tertiary hospital (University of Benin Teaching Hospital).
Materials and methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was used in the research. The study was carried out from May 2021 to March 2023. Data was collected using a well-structured questionnaire from 113 women who attended the antenatal clinic and 113 women who attended fertility clinic of the same hospital. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The data was analyzed with IBM SPSS version 25.0 software, and a significance level of 0.05 was considered significant. Instruments used in identifying the coping strategies and to screen for psychological distress was the BRIEF-COPE and the 28-item General Health Questionnaire respectively.
Results:Majority 98(86.7%) of women who attended the antenatal unit had good psychological well-being while 82(72.6%) women in the fertility clinic had poor psychological health. Forty five (39.8%) respondents in the fertility clinic had severe depression while 4(3.5%) respondents in antenatal unit had severe depression. This difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.0001).Overall, the social experience of respondents in the fertility clinic was rated poor 63(55.8%) this is in contrast to those in the antenatal clinic which were rate good 103(91.2%). The difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.0001). Interestingly, all women who attended the fertility clinic made use of the approach coping mechanism in dealing with infertility while 101(89.4%) women in antenatal unit made use of approach coping. A hundred and twelve (99.1%) women in the fertility clinic made use of avoidant coping also to deal with infertility while 85(75.2%) women in the antenatal clinic made use of avoidant coping strategy.Items in the avoidant coping such as self-distraction, active coping, denial, substance abuse, information support, behavioral disengagement, venting, humour, acceptance, religion and self-blaming was used by respondents in both clinics.This difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.0001)respectively.Subscales of approach coping such as emotional support(p=0.336),positive reframing (p=0.462), and planning (p=0.127) were not statistically significant.
