Psychometric characteristics of the FertiQoL questionnaire in a German sample of infertile individuals and couples.

Abstract

BackgroundFertiQoL is a questionnaire internationally developed to measure fertility-specific quality of life. It has been validated with infertile populations in many countries and used in several studies focusing on the psychosocial consequences of infertility in Europe, Asia, and North America.MethodsOver a period of two years, 596 infertile women and men took part in the study conducted at three German fertility clinics. Psychometric properties of FertiQoL were tested by performing confirmatory factor analyses, calculating average variance extracted values, reliability and correlation coefficients. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to determine the relations between FertiQoL subscales and both sociodemographic and medical variables. Individual and cross-partner effects were tested for.ResultsThe confirmatory factor analyses conducted on our FertiQoL data supported the original four-factor solution for both women and men but, resulted in some unsatisfactory indices. Family and friends’ support items loaded weakly on the Social subscale of FertiQoL (.27 and .34 in women, .32 and .19 in men). The Emotional and Mind/Body subscales revealed a strong intercorrelation (r = .77, p < .001 in women, r = .74, p < .001 in men). Women scored lower than men on the Emotional and Mind/Body subscales only, and they reported better fertility-specific relational QoL. In women, the perceived cause of infertility and already mothering a child related significantly to individual FertiQoL scores, while in men, age, educational level, and the duration of their wish for a child had an impact on the FertiQoL subscales (all p < .05). The men’s educational level, the women’s educational level, and the subjective perceived medical cause of fertility problems exerted cross-partner effects on QoL (all p < .05).ConclusionsOur study results represent a contribution both to research and clinical practice. The findings suggest the importance of considering the personal experience of infertility in different cultural and gender specific settings and that the strong connections between the emotional, physical, and cognitive aspects of an individual’s fertility-specific quality of life should be regarded as a more coherent system.Trial registrationDRKS: DRKS00014707. Registered 1 May 2018 (retrospectively registered).

Psychometric properties of the FertiQoL questionnaire in Italian infertile women in different stages of treatment

“…fertiqol.org), showing good overall psychometric characteristics (e.g. Aarts et al, 2011;Sexty et al, 2018). It has also demonstrated good convergent validity with measures of depression, anxiety and quality of the couple relationship (Aarts et al, 2011;Donarelli et al, 2016;Maroufizadeh, Ghaheri, Amini, & Omani Samani, 2017;Sexty et al, 2018).…”

“…Aarts et al, 2011;Sexty et al, 2018). It has also demonstrated good convergent validity with measures of depression, anxiety and quality of the couple relationship (Aarts et al, 2011;Donarelli et al, 2016;Maroufizadeh, Ghaheri, Amini, & Omani Samani, 2017;Sexty et al, 2018). Donarelli and colleagues (2016) studied the FertiQoL Core in an Italian sample of 301 females and 288 males and found that a four-factor solution had a good fit to the original Core-FertiQoL model (Boivin et al 2011) and that the reliability of subscales was at least acceptable, with Cronbach alphas ranging from 0.65 to 0.84.…”

“…Regarding the causes of infertility, recent studies measuring QoL through the FertiQoL have reported lower Mind-Body QoL (Keramat et al, 2014;Sexty et al, 2018) and Emotional QoL (Heredia et al, 2013) scores when the perceived cause of infertility was attributed to the combined factor. Similarly, Maroufizadeh and colleagues (2017) found that Core FertiQoL scores were lower among women who were told that the reasons for infertility were either unknown or due to mixed female / malefactors.…”

Infertility treatment hinders the careers of working women in Japan

“…FertiQoL was created by experts from the Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology and the American Society of Reproduction and has been translated into 26 languages. 4,20 This validity and reliability of the tool have already been reported 13,21,22 for Japanese 23 patients as well as patients in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Iran, Germany, and Taiwan. 4,20,21,24 FertiQoL is broadly divided into Core FertiQoL and Treatment FertiQoL.…”

“…4,20 This validity and reliability of the tool have already been reported 13,21,22 for Japanese 23 patients as well as patients in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Iran, Germany, and Taiwan. 4,20,21,24 FertiQoL is broadly divided into Core FertiQoL and Treatment FertiQoL. Core FertiQoL is the average QOL across the Emotional, Mind-Body, Relational and Social subscales, and Treatment QOL is the average QOL of the Treatment Environment and Treatment Tolerability subscales.…”