Effectiveness of an Educational Program in Enhancing Infertile Women’s Psychological Health

Nagwa A. Souilm^1, , Nawal Kamal Abd Elkhalek² and Mervat Mohamed Hassan²

¹Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, South Valley University, Egypt

²Obstetrics and Gynecological Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, South Valley University, Egypt

Cite this paper:
Nagwa A. Souilm, Nawal Kamal Abd Elkhalek and Mervat Mohamed Hassan. Effectiveness of an Educational Program in Enhancing Infertile Women’s Psychological Health. American Journal of Nursing Research. 2018; 6(6):515-523. doi: 10.12691/ajnr-6-6-20

Abstract

Background: Infertility is a worldwide problem with negative impacts on psychological health of couples. Nurses have a crucial role in the mitigation of these problems. Aim of the study: To examine the effectiveness of a nursing intervention in enhancing infertile women’s psychological health and improving associated disorders. Subjects and methods: The study was conducted in the outpatient department at Qena General Hospital using a one-group quasi-experimental design. It involved 90 infertile women attending the setting for management. An interview questionnaire form with four scales namely the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Experiences of Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R), and the Defensive Style Questionnaire (DSQ-60) was used in data collection. The researcher designed and implemented by the researchers in the light of the needs identified in the pre-intervention assessment phase. The study was achieved through assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation phases. Results: Women’ age ranged between 21 and 47 years, mostly with primary infertility (80.0%). Statistically significant improvements were demonstrated at the post-intervention phase in all four domains of GHQ (p<0.001), and the mean total score increased from 39.6 to 68.0 (p<0.001). The total median narcissism personality score decreased from 24.50 before the intervention to 16.00 after the intervention (p<0.001). As for ECR-attachment scale, the median dropped from 4.16 to 3.11 (p<0.001). Similar statistically significant post-intervention improvements were revealed in the DSQ-60 scale. The multivariate analysis identified the study intervention as the main positive predictor of the GHQ score, a negative predictor of the narcissistic and ECR scores. Meanwhile, the study intervention was a positive predictor of the adapt DSQ domain whereas it was a negative predictor of the affect regulating domain score. Conclusion and recommendations: Infertile women suffer a number of psychological problems that are amenable to treatment through simple educational nursing interventions. Such educational endeavors should be implemented on a wide scale in all similar settings.

Keywords:
infertility GHQ narcissistic personality ECR-R DSQ-60

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