A Study to Assess the Prevalence of Levels of Stress Among Infertile Women Attending Infertility Clinic of Selected Hospitals of Bagalkot

Abstract

Background of the study: The role that stress plays in infertility remains controversial, largely because despite medical advances a large percentage of infertility remains unexplained. The relationship between stress and infertility has been debated for years. Women with infertility report elevated levels of anxiety and depression, so it is clear that infertility causes stress. What is less clear, however, is whether or not stress causes infertility. Infertility is defined as the inability to procreate, or carry or deliver a baby naturally. The majority of specialists describe infertility as being unable to get pregnant after having tried for at least one year. The relationship between infertility and psychological stress is complex. On the one hand, infertile couples are subject to greater stress and have a greater risk of developing psychological disorders compared with normal, healthy couples. On the other hand, high levels of psychological distress have been indicated to increase infertility. Material and methods: The research approach adopted for this study was quantitative research approach and the design used was descriptive research design. The convenience sampling technique was used to select 100 subjects. The tool used for data collection was Cohen’s perceived stress scale. Paper pencil technique was used for data collection and data obtained were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: result indicates that majority 68% of respondent had high level of stress, 27% of respondent had moderate level of stress and 5% of respondent had low level of stress. The overall mean level of stress score was found to be27.05%with SD as 4.75%.Chi-square test was calculated to assess the association between socio demographic variables and levels of stress among infertile women. There is no significant association found between levels of stress among infertile women with their socio demographic variables such as Age, Types of family, Religion, Duration of marriage in year, Educational Qualification, Occupation, Monthly income of family, Family support, Source of information regarding health. Conclusion: The finding of the study concluded that most of the infertile women having high level of stress and moderate level of stress. Keywords: Infertile women, Stress levels, Cohen’s perceived stress scale, Socio demographic variables.