The effect of infertility counseling interventions on marital and sexual satisfaction of infertile couples: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Alirezaei S, Somayeh Alirezaei, Ali Taghipour, Taghipour A, Robab Latifnejad Roudsari
International journal of reproductive biomedicine · 2022 · vol. 20(10) , pp. 795–806 · doi:10.18502/ijrm.v20i10.12264 · PMID:36381353 · PMC9644646
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A systematic review and meta-analysis of 13 randomized clinical trials demonstrated that psychological counseling interventions significantly improve both marital and sexual satisfaction in infertile couples.

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This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the impact of various infertility counseling interventions on marital and sexual satisfaction among infertile couples. The study analyzed data from thirteen articles involving 230 infertile women and 512 infertile couples, utilizing diverse therapeutic approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotional focus therapy, and sexual therapy. Results indicated that these psychological interventions significantly improved both marital and sexual satisfaction compared to routine care or control groups, despite some limitations regarding blinding and sample loss in the included trials. Relevance to endometriosis: endometriosis is listed as one of several potential causes of infertility in the introduction, but the paper does not explicitly discuss endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Psychological consequences of infertility could have a negative effect on marital and sexual satisfaction. Numerous medical associations have strongly recommended psychological interventions, including counseling, to help infertile couples. OBJECTIVE: This study reviewed the effectiveness of counseling interventions on marital and sexual satisfaction in infertile couples. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses checklist Databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Psych Info, Cochran Library, Scopus, and Embase were searched for relevant articles published up to March 2020. All randomized clinical trials assessing the impact of psychological interventions on marital and sexual satisfaction in infertile couples were included in the review. The outcome measures were marital and sexual satisfaction, and the pooled estimate of the effects was calculated using a random-effects model. The risk of bias was measured using the Cochrane risk of bias tool, and the summary measures were reported as 95% confidence interval and percentage of heterogeneity. RESULTS: Out of the 309 studies found through the search, 13 randomized clinical trials including 230 infertile women and 512 infertile couples were systematically reviewed and included in the meta-analysis. It was found that counseling interventions improve marital and sexual satisfaction. CONCLUSION: As counseling and psychological interventions increase the marital and sexual satisfaction of infertile couples, those are highly recommended for the psychological management of infertile couples.
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The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that counseling and psychological interventions increase infertile couple's marital and sexual satisfaction. Therefore, it is recommended that counselors provide counseling interventions to increase the level of infertile couples' marital and sexual satisfaction.

Coi Statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest and are solely responsible for the writing and content of the article.

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infertility

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License: CC-BY-NC-4.0