Mindfulness and fertility quality of life in Chinese women with infertility: assessing the mediating roles of acceptance, autonomy and self-regulation

ABSTRACT

Objectives: To examine whether high dispositional mindfulness was associated with heightened specific aspects of fertility quality of life (FertiQoL) in infertile women, and whether acceptance, autonomy and self-regulation, mediated any association.

Background: Quality of life is one of the most important issues to be addressed in infertility counselling. A large body of evidence reveals that populations with higher dispositional mindfulness fare better than their less mindful counterparts on psychological well-being. However, no research has examined the influence of mindfulness on infertile women’s FertiQoL and potential mechanisms underlying these associations.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of infertile women attending to Southwest Hospital, China. Standardized measures of FertiQoL and proposed mediators (self-regulation, acceptance and autonomy) were administered at the conclusion of the patient’s medical appointment from December 2015 to March 2016. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised mediation model.

Results: Mindfulness was positively related to Core and Treatment FertiQoL. Higher mindfulness was related to higher autonomous and self-regulatory abilities, as well as lower experiential avoidance, which in turn resulted in better Treatment FertiQoL. Meanwhile, mindfulness exerted its indirect effect on Core FertiQoL through self-regulation. However, acceptance and autonomy could not mediate the link between mindfulness and Core FertiQoL.

Conclusion: Mindfulness appears to be a protective individual characteristic of infertile women, and self-regulation, autonomy and acceptance may be implicated in the effects of mindfulness on specific aspects of FertiQoL. The findings can provide useful suggestions to design mindfulness-based interventions aiming at improving FertiQoL in infertile women, by adding or emphasising intentional self-regulation, autonomy and acceptance components.

KEYWORDS:

• Mindfulness
• self-regulation
• autonomy
• acceptance
• fertility quality of life (FertiQoL)
• women with infertility

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to especially thank all the individuals who responded to our recruitment invitation for their interest in and support of our research. This work was supported by the Chongqing Social Science Planning Project of China granted to J.L. (No. 2016BS036).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Chongqing Social Science Planning PhD Project of China [2016BS036].