Stress, stigma, violence experiences and social support of US infertile women

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Previous studies investigated the physical, psychological and sociological effects of infertility; however, stigma and violence experiences of infertile women haven’t yet been studied in the US. The objective of the study is to examine the perceived stress, stigma, violence experiences, and social support of US infertile women and to compare with fertile women in order to understand the effects of infertility on stress levels, violence exposures, and support.

Methods: The descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with fertile and infertile women who use social media for an online support group. A convenience sample of 786 women completed an online survey.

Results: In the study, 41.6% of participants were fertile and 58.4% were infertile. We found infertile women experienced high levels of stigma and moderate stress. One in five infertile women has been exposed to emotional or physical violence. Compared to fertile women, infertile women had significantly higher perceived stress levels and were less likely to experience emotional or physical violence.

Conclusion: These findings highlight that infertile women have experienced stigma and high levels of stress in a developed country. They are also exposed to emotional or physical violence, but surprisingly infertile women are less likely to report violence than fertile women.

KEYWORDS:

• Fertility
• perceived stress
• stigma
• violence against women
• social pressure
• support

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to offer their special thanks to the study team. We thank the women who generously completed the anonymous survey on this sensitive topic. We would also like to thank Dr. Chelsea Deroche for helping with the statistical analysis. And thank the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), as this project was supported by TUBITAK postdoctoral fellowship program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The study was not supported by any funding.