Determination of hopelessness in infertile individuals

For couples who want to have a baby, infertility is a life crisis that is threatening psychologically, stressful emotionally, expensive economically and agonizing due to operations performed for diagnosis and treatment; and it causes many psychosocial problems in individuals.This survey was carried out by using cross-sectional and descriptive method in order to determine hopelessness in infertile individuals. Population of the survey was composed of individuals who applied to fertility clinics of two hospitals located in Ankara city center; and sampling of the survey was composed of 609 individuals in total who made application between May 2008 and September 2008 and who accepted participating in the survey. ?Patient Information Form? and ?Beck Hopelessness Scale? were used as data collection means. Data were evaluated by means of percentage, Kruskall-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests. It was found out that the level of hopelessness increases as women?s age, period of infertility and period of desire to have a child increase, and that the level of hopelessness increases as men?s period of desire to have a child increases, and that the level of hopelessness decreases in men and women as education and income levels increase. It was found out, for both men and women, that individuals who work and have social security have less hopelessness. Reason of infertility, sex, having a living child, previous pregnancy and result of pregnancy do not affect the level of hopelessness in infertile men and women. It was found out that infertile individuals stating that they are affected adversely related to infertility treatment are more hopeless. According to the results of the survey, it is suggested that the hope is assessed and supported while psychological requirements of individuals observed in infertility treatment centers, especially old individuals whose period of marriage and period of desire to have a child are long and who do not work, are assessed by nurses in each phase.Keywords: Infertility, Individual, Hopelessness