Effect of cognitive behavioral therapy in mental health and hardiness of infertile women receiving assisted reproductive therapy (ART)

Background: Infertility is a stressful event that can give rise to psychological difficulties. Now, a wide range of psychosocial interventions for infertile couples has been developed.
Objective: Purpose of this study was to determine the effect of group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to reduce stress, anxiety and depression of women undergoing assisted reproductive therapy (ART).
Materials and Methods: This study was an experimental study (before and after study with control group) on infertile women who were referring to Gynecological clinics of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences to receive ART. 31 women who had criteria to enter the study were randomly divided into experimental group (n=15) and control group (n=16). The participants in the experimental group received 1 hour and 30 minute weekly session's group therapy in 15 week as intervention. For gathering data, depression, anxiety and stress scale (DASS) normalized Persian version and Ahvaz Hardiness Test (AHT) were used to assess psychological distress and psychological hardiness in pre-posttest.
Results: There were significant differences in mean score of infertile psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and stress in experimental group pretest with posttest. Furthermore, the results indicated that there were significant differences between hardiness in two groups. The experimental group had higher scores in hardiness than control group (p=0.001).
Conclusion: It seems to be, that group therapy interventions, specially, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be useful and applicable to women who receiving ART.

Keywords
Assisted reproductive therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, Mental health, Iranian women, Hardiness.