Effectiveness of Counseling for Infertile Couples on Women’s Emotional Disturbance: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract Objective The psychosocial burden of infertility among couples can be one of the most important reasons for women’s emotional disturbance. The goal of the present study was to investigate the effect of counseling on different emotional aspects of infertile women. Methods The present randomized clinical trial was performed on 60 couples with primary infertility who were referred for treatment for the first time and did not receive psychiatric or psychological treatment. Samples were allocated to an intervention group (30 couples) and a control group (30 couples) by simple randomization. The intervention group received infertility counseling for 6 45-minute sessions twice a week, and the control group received routine care. The Screening on Distress in Fertility Treatment (SCREENIVF) questionnaire was completed before and after the intervention. Samples were collected from November to December 2016 for 3 months. For the data analysis, we used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, United States) software, version 19.0, and the paired t-test, the independent t-test, the Mann-Whitney test, the Wilcoxon test, and the Chi-squared test. Results The mean age of the participants was 33.39±5.67 years. All studied couples had primary infertility and no children. The mean duration of the couples’ infertilitywas 3 years. There was a significant difference regarding depression (1.55±1.92; p<0.0001), social support (15.73±3.41; p<0.0001), and cognitions regarding domains of fertility problems (26.48±3.05; p=0.001) between the 2 groups after the intervention, but there was no significant difference regarding anxiety (25.03±3.09; p=0.35). Conclusion The findings showed that infertility counseling did not affect the total score of infertile women’ emotional status, but improved the domains of it except, anxiety.

摘要
## 目的
不孕夫妇所承受的社会心理负担，是引发女性情绪紊乱的关键诱因之一。本研究旨在探讨咨询干预对不孕女性不同情绪维度的影响。
## 方法
本研究为随机对照临床试验，纳入60对首次就诊且未接受过精神科或心理治疗的原发性不孕夫妇。采用简单随机化方法将受试者分为干预组（30对）与对照组（30对）。干预组接受不孕咨询干预，共6次，每次45分钟，每周2次；对照组仅接受常规诊疗服务。分别于干预前后采用《生育治疗心理困扰筛查问卷（SCREENIVF）》进行测评。本研究的数据采集于2016年11月至12月，共计3个月。数据分析采用社会科学统计软件包（IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows，美国纽约州阿蒙克市IBM公司出品）19.0版本，所使用的统计方法包括配对t检验、独立样本t检验、曼-惠特尼检验、威尔科克森检验及卡方检验。
## 结果
受试者的平均年龄为33.39±5.67岁，所有纳入夫妇均为原发性不孕且无子女，不孕平均病程为3年。干预后，两组在抑郁评分（1.55±1.92；p<0.0001）、社会支持评分（15.73±3.41；p<0.0001）及不孕问题相关认知维度评分（26.48±3.05；p=0.001）方面均存在显著差异，但焦虑评分（25.03±3.09；p=0.35）无显著组间差异。
## 结论
本研究结果显示，不孕咨询干预未对不孕女性的情绪状态总分产生显著影响，但可改善除焦虑维度外的其他情绪相关维度。