Objective: To examine the relationship between amount of treatment failure and personal and marital distress.
Design: In this cross-sectional design, three groups of women (n = 91) with varying amounts of treatment failure experience were compared on measures of general and infertility-related distress and marital and sexual distress.
Results: The relationship between treatment failure experience and personal and marital distress was found to be curvilinear. The group that had a moderate amount of treatment failure experienced the most distress whereas the distress level of those without or with a high amount of treatment failure experience was comparable. The results also showed that the relationship between amount of treatment failure and distress was independent of age, years infertile, or years in treatment.
Conclusion: The findings of this study provide support for infertility theories that suggest that infertility is a process rather than a series of independent emotional events and suggest that the distress women experience during infertility is a necessary part of their evolution toward acceptance of their infertility.