Personality traits and the feeling of loneliness of women treated for infertility

Abstract

Summary Objectives: Assessing the feeling of loneliness of women treated because of infertility, compared to women without any procreation problems, and verifying, whether there is a correlation with the presented personality traits. Material and methods: 26 women treated for infertility (in accordance with the officially recognized criteria) in the Obstetrics and Women Health Clinic at the Medical University in Gdańsk, and 25 women not experiencing any procreation problems, were included into the study. The research tools included a self-constructed sociodemographic questionnaire, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the UCLA Loneliness Scale by D. Russell, L. Peplau, C. Cytron. Results: There are significant differences among the investigated groups in terms of the following personality dimensions: Masculinity – Femininity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia and the Social Introversion Scale. Women treated because of infertility scored higher in all these scales, their results remained within the norm though. The studied groups demonstrated different relations between the MMPI scales and the UCLA scales results. Conclusions: Women treated due to infertility have a personality profile similar to women without any procreation problems. Only the group whose profiles exhibited some pathological features demonstrated symptoms of worse adaptation to life, a tendency to experience a higher psychological discomfort and higher psychological stress, higher level of anxiety related to being assessed by others, and greater difficulties in accepting the role of a female. As far as the sense of loneliness was concerned women treated due to infertility did not differ significantly from the ones without procreation problems.