Introduction: Psychologists who are dealing with infertile couples try to plan intervention strategies to decrease the stress and increase their compatibility for better results and providing mental health care. To achieve this goal, the effective factors on their stress and mental health should be determine and planning to reduce their vulnerability should be done. The purpose of this study was to evaluate effective factors on depression in infertile women and causal relationships between stigma, coping strategies, social support and depression in infertile women population.
Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 400 infertile women who were referred to Sarem infertility hospital, Tehran, Iran from October to December 2010. Sampling was accessible. Participants were assessed using social support questionnaire of Vax et al, coping inventory for stressful situations by Endler and Parker, Beck depression inventory-II and perceived stigma inventory. Data were analyzed by LISREL software version 8.5.
Spearman correlation test was used to determine the relationship between the structures and path analysis for the contribution of each component.
Results: The perceived social stigma in infertile women lead them to depression if it were associated with emotion-focused coping strategies and the loss of family support. In other words, emotion-focused coping strategies and family support affect as mediator in the relationship between stigma and depression in infertile women.
Conclusion: Focusing on the coping strategies and family support in infertile women might play an important role(s) in decreasing their depression and vulnerability to stigmatization.