PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INFERTILE COUPLES - CAN THEY PREDICTPREGNANCY AND TREATMENT PERSISTENCE

The paper describes an exploratory study of the relative importance of different psychological variables for the prediction of(a) pregnancie s and (b) treatment continuation in a sample of 140 couples seeking sp ecialized infertility treatment one year after their first contact wit h an infertility clinic. The couples filled out questionnaires dealing with psychological and interpersonal functioning, marital and life sa tisfaction, child-related attitudes, causal attribution of infertility and general expectations towards the treatment. It could be shown tha t the psychological variables explain a relatively small amount of the variance of the pregnancy criterion. Nevertheless, there were some in dications supporting the hypothesis that psychological complaints can be seen as a 'risk factor' associated with a lower pregnancy rate. Cou ples who had terminated treatment after one year indicated a higher am ount of psychological and interpersonal complaints (females) as well a s partner problems (males and females), and a dominance of internal at tributions of the fertility problem. This result-which might help to d evelop strategies for counselling couples making use of the new reprod uctive technologies-highlights the importance of attribution and cogni tive appraisal in coping with infertility. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.