The effect of infertility and its treatment to womens' working life

Aim: To determine effect of infertility and its treatment to womens' working life. Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional and correlational study conducted with 200 woman who came to infertility polyclinics of İzmir Ege Maternity Hospital and Dokuz Eylül University Hospital. Data were collected by face-to-face interview method. The data were evaluated by t test, chi-square test and One Way Anova. Findings: The 50.0% of women were absend 2- 5 days from their work during the last treatment and 53.0% of them had trouble to take time off from work. Most of women (76.5%) specified that their thoughts related to treatment prevent them from doing their jobs, and 52.0% of them have problems focusing to their jobs. The 91.7% of women who said that their careeer was affected emphasized that these are negative effects. The 32.5% of women specified that they have medium level work stres and they said the average point of treatment related work stres level was 4.16 ± 2.709. The 87.5% of women in our study had troubles to share their treatment problems to coworkers and 67.0% of them had the same problem with their bosses. The 88.5% of woman stated that they dont have any problem related to injections in their work places. The 10.9% of them felt dissatisfaction of work, 5.5% had conflicts, 29.9 were alienated from work. It is determined that infertility years effects womens problem related to their works (p= 0.021). Couples that decide for treatment toogether (p= 0.027) and then knowed the reason of infertility (p= 0.000) had lower work stress. It is also determined that being alienated from work was effected by type of infertility treatment (p= 0.036), number of treatment cycle (p= 0.026) and knowing the reason of infertility (p= 0.046 ). Conclusion: Evaluation and planning supportive approaches of the women who have infertility, their working life features shouldalso be considered. Employer should be informed about infertility and its treatment process, their employees should be trained to treat them more empathetically. Key words: İnfertility, Working Life, Women, Psychosocial Problem