Fertility-Related Quality of Life Amongst Married Infertile Females of Lahore

Abstract

Introduction: In today’s world of science and medicine, assessing ones’ quality of life has become a norm. It provides baseline information for future planning in order to elevate quality of life of individuals and communities. Aims & Objectives: To assess the quality of life of infertile women and identify factors influencing it. Place and duration of study: Data was collected from Lahore General Hospital and Services Institute of Medical Sciences, Lahore during 2019. Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 260 married, infertile females attending infertility clinics of two tertiary care hospitals of Lahore. 36-items FertiQoL, an Urdu validated version was used to assess the quality of life of females with infertility. It had six subscales and three total scores. Data was analyzed through SPSS version 22. Results: Mean age of females was found to be 30+5.23 years and 85.8% were not working women. Average duration of infertility was 6.7 years. 61.5% of females presented with primary infertility. 70.4% reported positive attitude of their husband towards this infertility while 56.2% of the participants reported positive attitude of their in-laws as well. 30.8% of the females rated their health as poor. 31.2% reported to be dissatisfied with their overall quality of life. In FertiQoL, ‘Emotional’ subscale showed mean 67±14 SD, ‘Mind-body’ subscale mean 69±14 SD, ‘Relational’ subscale mean 55±14.7 SD, ‘Social’ subscale mean 66.2±14.5 SD, ‘Treatment Environment’ mean 70±17.5 SD and ‘treatment tolerability’ showed mean of 73±17.2 SD. ‘Total scaled core score’ showed mean of 64.5±12 SD, ‘total scaled treatment score’ mean of 69.3±14 SD and ‘total scored FertiQoL score’ showed mean of 66±12 SD. Significant association between family income and mind body subscale; duration of marriage and treatment tolerability; time till infertility diagnosis and treatment environment was found. While overall FertiQoL score and Family Income was found to be significantly associated. Conclusion: Overall quality of life of infertile females is not compromised as was thought of except for its association with family income. Sub scales of mind-body, treatment tolerability and treatment environment were found to be associated with family income, duration of marriage and time till infertility diagnosis respectively. Recognition of factors associated with poor quality of life will help in planning strategies to overcome them during infertility treatment.