Emotional and affective states in infertility: a comparative study of fertile people

The objective of this research is the assessment of emotional maladjustment, positive and negative affect and adaptive resources in infertile patients in a stage previous to medical treatment, as well as the ability to show emotions or alexithymia, and state and trait anxiety, establishing also the gender differences in those variables. The experimental group was formed by 101 patients with fertility problems (51 men and 50 women) who had requested a fertility study in a reproductive assistance center, and the control group was formed by 90 participants with children (36 men and 54 women) from general population. The results concluded that infertile women showed higher levels of emotional maladjustment, state-anxiety and negative affect than fertile women. It was also found that infertile women showed higher levels of emotional maladjustment, trait-anxiety, state-anxiety, and negative affect than infertile men. Finally, men exhibit higher levels of alexithymia than women. The results of this research help to understand the infertility underlying processes.