Assessing grief, depression, and coping behaviors of women participating in in vitro fertilization embryo transfer

The infertile couple invests significant amounts of time, physical and emotional energy, and hope in attempting to conceive. Presently, the rapid development in reproductive technology provides a variety of treatments for infertility. In vitro fertilization (IVF) has been found to be an acceptable alternative for some infertile women, but the cost of IVF ranges from $6,000 to $8,000 for each treatment cycle, the probability of a successful live birth using IVF is low, and each treatment cycle is accompanied with physical and emotional side effects. Also, infertility can have deleterious effects on the emotional status of women who are unsuccessful at achieving pregnancy. This study investigated differences in the levels of grief and depression between infertile women who participated in IVF or non-IVF treatment programs and were unsuccessful in achieving pregnancy. Also, the coping strategies utilized by the participants were identified. Fifty infertile women in an IVF program and 50 infertile women in a non-IVF program completed five pretest and posttest questionnaires that measured grief and depression and identified the coping strategies utilized by the subjects to reduce emotional stress. Results of t tests comparing pretest and posttest means indicated that the level of grief associated with an unsuccessful pregnancy attempt was significantly different within the IVF treatment group and the non-IVF treatment group of women. The difference in the means on the depression scores was significant only for the non-IVF program group