The issue of infertility is a worldwide challenge, estimated to affect approximately 50 million couples. Infertility is a stressful event for women and may result in stigma. This study aimed to investigate stigma and its predictors in Chinese women with infertility. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Shenzhen, China, from November 2022 to April 2023. Two hundred seventy-five women with infertility completed the Mandarin version of the Infertility Stigma Scale (ISS), the Mandarin version of the Fertility Problem Inventory (M-FPI), and a socialdemographic data sheet. Descriptive statistics were used for demographic and infertility-related characteristics and study variables. The predictors of stigma were subjected to univariate and multivariate analyses. Although the women with infertility had an average mild level of stigma (54.00 38.00, 68.00), 26.9% (n = 74) and 4.7% (n = 13) of the women had a moderate and severe level of stigma, respectively. The women had an average moderate level of infertility-related stress (143.00 122.00, 157.00), with 7.3% (n = 20) of women having severe infertility-related stress. The predictors of stigma in women with infertility were the dimensions of social concern, relationship concern, and need for parenthood of infertility-related stress. This study found that stigma and infertility-related stress were prevalent in Chinese women with infertility. Psychosocial strategies aimed at reducing infertility-related stress may help mitigate perceived stigma in this population.
Li et al. (Fri,) studied this question.