REACTIONS TO INFERTILITY BASED ON EXTENT OF TREATMENT FAILURE

Objective: To examine the relationship between amount of treatment fai lure and personal and marital distress. Design: In this cross-sectiona l design, three groups of women (n = 91) with varying amounts of treat ment failure experience were compared on measures of general and infer tility-related distress and marital and sexual distress. Results: The relationship between treatment failure experience and personal and mar ital distress was found to be curvilinear. The group that had a modera te amount of treatment failure experienced the most distress whereas t he distress level of those without or with a high amount of treatment failure experience was comparable. The results also showed that the re lationship between amount of treatment failure and distress was indepe ndent of age, years infertile, or years in treatment. Conclusion: The findings of this study provide support for infertility theories that s uggest that infertility is a process rather than a series of independe nt emotional events and suggest that the distress women experience dur ing infertility is a necessary part of their evolution toward acceptan ce of their infertility.