Coping patterns among infertile women by using a modified scale

Abstract

This descriptive comparative study aimed to modify a coping scale for assessment of the coping patterns among infertile women and test the content validity and internal consistency reliability of the coping scale and also to compare between primary and secondary infertility women in regard to the coping patterns. the study included 181 women enrolled through systemic random sample of those attended the infertility outpatient clinic at Ain Shams Maternity University Hospital during the period of August and September 2001. The modified coping scale included two sub-scales affective oriented coping scale consisted of 53 items divided in seven factors of behavioral and emotional patterns in the context of self,husband, family and friends and problem- oriented scale consisted of 15 items of positive and negative patterns in dealing with the problem. The results showed that the items loaded significantly on the factors and Alpha reliability recorded statistical significance between .59 to .87 and sperman correlation coefficient showed a positive relation between coping factors and total scores mean of items. The coping patterns related to self, husband, family and friends, also showed a statistical significant difference in both the emotional and behavioral commutative items among the total sample. The results also showed difference in the total scoring mean for the coping items in each factors between primary and secondary infertility women as the secondary infertility were confrontive, optimistic and deal positively which showed more coping with the infertility problem. The research recommended further researches to investigate the validity and reliability of the modified scale.