Abstract:

Objective: To investigate the infertility-related stress, dyadic coping and the fertility quality of life in newly diagonosed infertility patients and their spouses, and to analyze their interrelationships so as to explore the subjective and object-dependent mediating effect between fertility pressure and fertility quality. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 267 newly diagonsed infertility couples from our center, between September and November 2023. These couples have been proposed the assisted reproductive therapy. The following questionnaires were used: fertility problem inventory(FPI), dyadic coping inventory(DCI) and fertility quality of life(FertiQoL). SPSS 26.0 software was used for statistical description and statistical inference of the data, and R4.3.2 software was used to analyze the actor-partner interdependence mediation model Results: A total of 267 infertility patients and their spouses received questionnaires, and 257 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective recovery rate of 96.25%. In Pearson correlation analysis, infertility-related stress was significantly correlated with dyadic coping and fertility quality of life (all P<0.001). In the principal-agent effect, the principal-mediating effects between male and female fertility pressure and reproductive life quality were established (β=-0.35 for female and β=-0.09 for male, respectively, P<0.05). In the partner-agent effect, women's infertility-related stress affects men's dyadic coping and thus their fertility quality of life (β=-0.04, P<0.05), and men's dyadic coping affects women's fertility quality of life through influencing women's dyadic coping (β=0.06, P<0.05). Conclusions: The behavior responses of infertility patients and their spouses in the process of coping with the disease are interrelated and influence each other. In the clinical diagnosis and treatment of infertility, the women's infertility-related stress should be considered at the same time, and the mutual influence of the infertility-related stress between themselves and their spouses should be considered. The corresponding intervention measures should be given to improve the fertility quality of life.

Key words: Infertility, female, Infertility, male, Dyadic coping, Infertility-related stress, Actor-partner interdependence mediation model