Infertility and psychological distress: A critical review of the literature
Infertility and psychological distress: A critical review of the literature
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DOI：
10.1016/s0277-9536(97)00102-0
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发表时间：
1997-12-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Greil, AL
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Greil, AL
本文回顾了有关不孕症的社会心理影响的文献，特别关注性别与不孕症经历之间的关系。将文献分为探讨不孕症可能有心理原因的可能性(心理原因假说)和研究不孕不育的心理后果(心理后果假说)的文章是方便的。心理原因假说现在被大多数研究人员拒绝，但一个相关的假说值得探索，该假说声称压力可能是不孕不育的一个原因。关于不孕不育的心理后果的描述性文献将不孕不育描述为一种毁灭性的经历，特别是对女性来说。测试心理后果假说的尝试产生了更多模棱两可的结果。总体而言，研究精神病理学的研究没有发现不孕症和其他人之间的显著差异。对压力和自尊进行测量的研究发现了显著的差异。心理后果文献的特点是一些缺陷，包括对妇女的过度抽样、样本量小、没有代表性的样本、未能研究那些没有寻求治疗的人、原始的统计技术以及过度依赖自我报告。对不孕症和心理痛苦的研究需要同时考虑不孕不育的持续时间和治疗的持续时间。对于这一领域的研究来说，找到一套合适的“控制”是一个特别棘手的问题。总体而言，心理痛苦文献对不孕不育的社会建构关注较少。通过将应该被理解为一种社会状况的特征并将其转化为一种个人特征，这些文献展示了一种本质上是不孕不育的心理社会影响的医学模型。大多数研究人员得出结论，不孕不育对女性来说是一种比男性更有压力的经历。大多数研究发现，性别与不孕症痛苦之间的关系不受哪一方患有生殖障碍的影响。未来的研究需要更好地从理论考虑中获得信息。学者们需要更多地关注不孕不育的经历是如何受到社会结构现实的制约的。需要开发新的方法，以便更好地考虑到不孕不育经历的过程性质。需要作出努力，将不育人口中研究不足的部分包括在内。最后，需要做出更多努力，将不孕不育经验的实证研究与重要的社会政策问题更好地结合起来。(C)1997年爱思唯尔科学有限公司。
This essay reviews the literature on the social psychological impact of infertility, paying special attention to the relationship between gender and the infertility experience. It is convenient to divide the literature into articles which explore the possibility that infertility may have psychological causes (Psychogenic Hypothesis) and those which examine the psychological consequences of infertility (Psychological Consequences Hypothesis). The psychogenic hypothesis is now rejected by most researchers, but a related hypothesis, which states that stress may be a causal factor in infertility, is worthy of exploration. The descriptive literature on the psychological consequences of infertility presents infertility as a devastating experience, especially for women. Attempts to test the psychological consequences hypothesis have produced more equivocal results. In general, studies which look for psychopathology have not found significant differences between the infertile and others. Studies which employ measures of stress and self-esteem have Found significant differences. The psychological consequences literature is characterized by a number of flaws, including over sampling of women, small sample size, non-representative samples, failure to study those who have not sought treatment, primitive statistical techniques, and an over-reliance on self-reports. Studies on infertility and psychological distress need to take into consideration both the duration of infertility and the duration of treatment. Finding an appropriate set of "controls" is a particularly intractable problem for this area of research. In general, the psychological distress literature shows little regard for the social construction of infertility. By taking what should be understood as a characteristic of a social situation and transforming it into an individual trait, the literature presents what is essentially a medical model of the psyche-social impact of infertility. Most researchers conclude that infertility is a more stressful experience for women than it is for men. Most studies have found that the relationship between gender and infertility distress is not affected by which partner has the reproductive impairment. Future research needs to be better informed by theoretical considerations. Scholars need to pay more attention to the way the experience of infertility is conditioned by social structural realities. New ways need to be developed for better taking into account the processual nature of the infertility experience. Efforts need to be make to include under-studied portions of the infertile population. Finally, more effort needs to be made to better integrate the empirical study of the experience of infertility with important social policy questions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.