Psychometric properties of the FertiQoL questionnaire in Italian infertile women in different stages of treatment

ABSTRACT

Background

Reliable Fertility-specific QoL measures can be obtained through the FertiQoL, a questionnaire with six-subscales that consider different core aspects of the person’s wellbeing and way of behaving during treatment.

Objective

Examine the psychometric properties of all six-subscales of the Italian FertiQoL in a sample of infertile women and explore the effects of the ART treatment phases.

Method

323 women, in three different treatment stages (Diagnostic, Stimulation, Transfer), completed the FertiQoL. Raw data were subject to Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and a structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to validate the hypothesised model.

Results

CFA shows a good fit of the data to the FertiQoL hierarchical model (chi-square/df = 1.989, CFI = 0.88, RMSEA = 0.055). After the deletion of 2 items, all FertiQoL scales have good internal consistency. SEM showed that the ART treatment phase was positively associated with fertility-related QoL scores both in the Relational (β = 0.14, p < 0.05) and in the Tolerability (β = 0.17, p < 0.05) subscales.

Conclusion

All scales of the Italian FertiQoL version maintain good psychometric characteristics; Tolerability and Relational subscales are sensitive to the treatment stage and thus providing relevant information for the medical staff.

KEYWORDS:

• FertiQoL
• infertility
• quality of life
• assisted reproductive technologies
• stage of treatment

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all interviewed patients for their participation. We thank also Dr Antonella Grillo (“U.M.R.”, Catania), Dr Stefano Bernardi (Maggiore Hospital, Cattolica), Dr Francesca Bongioanni (“Livet”, Turin) and Dr Marina Forte (“Genera”, Rome) for their help in recruitming into the study. We are very grateful to the reviewers of the early version of this paper for their comments and suggestions and to Prof. Christianne Verhaak for her critical readings and useful suggestions on the present version of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Ferring Pharmaceuticals funded this study [000039_11_Ferring_Violani].