The effect of the life style on life quality of couples receiving infertility treatment

This descriptive and analytic study was conducted in order to examine the effect of the life style on quality of life in couples receiving infertility treatment.The study was performed in the Centre for Assisted Reproduction Techniques of Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine between 01.09.2008 and 01.03.2009. The universe of the research was composed of a total 679 couples applying for the treatment of assisted reproduction techniques in 2007. The sampling size was calculated with power in the ratio of 80% with 0.05 error margin, and 200 couples were included in the survey. The used data collection tools are ?Personal Information Form? including demographic characteristics and history of infertility, ?SF-36 Quality of Life Scale? and ?Healthy Promotion Lifestyle Profile?.It has been ascertained that the average age of women and men receiving fertility treatment was 31.4 ± 5.26 for women and 34.52 ± 6.08 for men. 40.5% of women and 39.5% of men were primary school graduates, and the average infertility duration of couples was 6.01 ± 4.82 years. This study reveals that the healthy lifestyle behaviours and life quality of infertile couples are affected by many factors. It has been determined that the life quality of women was low compared to men, however, no difference was found between healthy lifestyle behaviours by gender. It has been discovered that the variables such as advancing age, low education level, low income level, longer infertility duration, higher body mass index, history of andrological surgery, implementation of three or more previous assisted reproductive technique, decreased the healthy lifestyle behaviours and life quality of couples. Also, the couple's quality of life were found to increase with increasing healthy lifestyle behaviour.Exhibition of positive health behaviours of couples receiving fertility treatment will increase their life quality. Therefore, the lifestyle behaviours and the factors, which may affect these behaviours of couples, must be defined by nurses in advance. According to the needs of infertile couples, providing consultancy service for couples is suggested in order them to gain positive health behaviours.Keywords: Infertility, Healthy Lifestyle Behaviours, SF-36 Life Quality, Nurse