Female infertility is a prevalent global health concern. Social class has been examined in relation to interpretations of formal infertility diagnoses. However, this study sought to investigate subjective self-definitions of infertility experiences. This study compared reported length of time trying to conceive and self-perceptions of infertility status, which created four groups: women who met the medical definition of infertility and considered themselves to be experiencing infertility, women who met the medical definition and did not consider themselves to be experiencing infertility, women who did not meet the medical definition but did consider themselves to be experiencing infertility, and women who did not meet the medical definition of infertility and did not consider themselves to be experiencing infertility. We were interested in examining subjective socioeconomic status as a predictor of group membership, operating on the idea that women who perceive themselves as lower SES might be less likely to acknowledge a subjective infertility status due to more limited resources for treatment. Female participants (N = 1233) were recruited from the social networking site Reddit to complete online self-report surveys created via the REDCap survey platform. A subset of female participants (n = 548) who reported they were currently trying to conceive was utilized for this study’s sample. A chi-square test of independence was conducted to examine the relationship between reported length of time trying to conceive and self-perceptions of infertility status. Results indicated a significant association between these variables, χ2 (1, N = 594) = 239.08, p < .001, indicating that women’s self-perception of whether or not they were experiencing infertility was largely in line with the medical definition of infertility. We intended to conduct logistic regression analysis to examine subjective socioeconomic status as a predictor of group membership, specifically for women who met the medical definition of infertility but did not perceive themselves as experiencing infertility. However, logistic regression was not performed due to a lack of statistical power for this group (n = 14). Future research should expand upon this rationale to inclusively investigate factors contributing to self-identification of infertility experiences. Understanding the role of psychosocial factors involved in infertility status perceptions could facilitate specific interventions to promote infertility treatment-seeking behaviors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:asrf-1360 |
| Date | 12 April 2019 |
| Creators | Barker, Morgan, Clark, Emily, Altschuler,, Rebecca, M.A., Dodd,, Julia, Ph.D. |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Appalachian Student Research Forum |
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