PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INFERTILE PATIENTS - DISCRIMINATING ETIOLOGIC FACTORS FROM REACTIVE CHANGES

Our objective was to discriminate psychological factors playing an eti ological role in infertility and psychological problems as consequence s of infertility. The design was a prospective study of couples with i nitially Undetermined Fertility (UF couples) and couples with initiall y Known Infertility (KI couples). After a 13-month follow-up, three gr oups could be defined: fertile UF couples; infertile UF couples; and K I couples. Hypotheses were the following. If a psychological factor pl ayed an etiological role, measures in fertile UF couples should be dif ferent from measures in infertile UF couples and in KI couples. If a p sychological measure reflected a reactive change, KI couples should di ffer from both groups of UF couples. Finally, if a psychological varia ble played both roles, the three pairwise comparisons between groups s hould reveal differences, with the largest difference between fertile UF couples and KI couples. The questionnaires used were the Child Proj ect Questionnaire (CPQ), with three factor scores (different for men a nd women) and a Sexual Problems Score (SPS); the Dyadic Adjustment Sca le; the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; the Neonatal Perception Invento ry. In women, on CPQ factor II, i.e. Frequency of Thoughts and Concern s related to the Project to Conceive a Child and on the SPS, KI women had scores significantly higher than both groups of UF women. In men, on CPQ factor II, i.e. Quality of Integration between Wish for a Child and Sexuality, men from fertile UF couples had significantly higher s cores than men from both infertile groups; the two latter groups did n ot differ significantly higher than scores of men from fertile UF coup les; scores were similar in both groups of men from infertile couples. We conclude that in women, CPQ factor II and sexual problems reflecte d reactive changes to infertility and that in men CPQ factor II and se xual problems represented etiological factors.