Abstract
3,5-16,6% of couples worldwide with childwish suffer from infertility, and about 20% thereof show clinically relevant psychological symptoms. Until now it remained unclear, up to which extent motivational factors are associated with psychological distress when suffering from infertility. The goal of this study was to assess individual motivational factors in a sample of infertile people, and to explore their effect on psychological distress. Additionally, the role of couple relationship quality as a dyadic predictor was to be examined. We assessed psychological distress, specificity of motivational goals and their achievement, and couple relationship quality in a sample of 123 infertile subjects by online survey. About half of the subjects indicated significant levels of psychological distress. Compared to psychopathologically distressed samples (without explicit infertility problems), infertile subjects specified less approach motivation. Furthermore, low levels of approach motivation were associated with low levels of distress. This applied specifically to the need for control and self-worth. Motivational factors explained 30% of variance in distress, whereas couple relationship quality, specifically the prevalence of arguing, explained merely 4%. These findings show that infertility is associated with distinct motivational patterns, and that these may be suitable to predict psychological distress.
Yamanaka-Altenstein, Misa