Vol. 5, Issue 1, Part A (2023)

Background: Infertility is defined as the inability of a person to conceive over a period of a year or more with regular a sexual intercourse and without using any form of sexual protection. Infertile patients face a variety of challenges impacting numerous aspects of their lives including the relational and social well-being, yet the psychological health is the most influential one of them. Numerous studies have been conducted to assess the quality of life in different areas, yet no national data was found using a validated method, such as the FertiQoL. A significant correlation was found between infertile patients and lower scores of total FertiQoL score. As a result, we believe that infertility is associated with having a lower quality of life among Saudi infertile patients; thus, we aim to investigate those population using validated questionnaires, such as FertiQoL.
Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Every patient who fulfilled the criteria from 2011 to 2018 was included in this study. Out of 146 patients, we were able to successfully contact only 78 by calling them and taking their consent verbally. The FertiQoL questionnaire was used for both infertile males and females who presented to King Abdulaziz.
Results: The majority of male participants had a good quality of life where the mean core FertiQoL score was 72.4 which is better than the female score which is 66.7. Also, women scored the lowest in the emotional subscale. There was no significant association of level of quality of life with age. Surprisingly, statistically significant higher scores were found in the less than high school education level than in the higher levels of education ones.
Conclusion: Infertility impacts all the domains of the quality of life; however, it mainly affects the emotional aspect in both males and females. Therefore, health professionals need to include an evaluation of psychological symptomatology to propose a more effective intervention to infertile individuals.