Investigating infertile individuals in treatment based on empowerment approach: Case of İzmir and Manisa

Infertility is not a life threatening health problem, but it can be a stressful experience for the individuals because of attributing a meaning to having a child. In addition to being diagnosed with infertility, individuals also face psychological, economic, social and relational problems during the treatment process. In the literature, approaches that emphasize the negativities predominate in the infertility experience. In this study, in addition to the problems that they experience; it is aimed to examine the experiences of infertile individuals during the diagnosis and the treatment on the basis of the empowerment approach which emphasizes the strengths and resources that shape individuals' coping skills. It appears that, the infertility experience which affects individual psychologically, socially, relationally and economically has not been addressed sufficiently in the social work literature in Turkey. Studies conducted in different disciplines also lack a holistic view of infertility experience. For this reason, this study presents holistically the evaluation of infertility experience and the empowerment approach which has an important place but needs to be more addressed in the social work literature. To that end it fills a significant gap. The study investigates the experiences of infertile individuals with mixed methods. Because infertility and its treatment are multidimensional process that need to be assessed psychologically, relationally, socially and economically. Experiences, power and weaknesses of individuals in different contexts during the diagnosis and treatment process were investigated by in-depth interviews. On the other hand; State / Trait Anxiety Inventory, Ways of Coping Questionnaire, and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale are used to measure anxiety, resilience and coping strategies of individuals. In-depth interviews were done only women, while scale forms were filled by both men and women. In-depth interviews were analyzed with Dedoose and scales with SPSS IBM analysis programs. Regression, correlation and various mean comparison analyzes were performed for quantitative data. The in-depth interviews were the dominant method, while the findings obtained from the scales were used to support in-depth interviews in this study. In-depth interviews revealed four themes. These are "Psychological and emotional dimension of diagnosis and treatment process", "Couple relations dimention of diagnosis and treatment process", "Social relations dimention of diagnosis and treatment process" and finally "The economic and community dimensions in diagnosis and treatment process". In terms of these themes, interviews and quantitative findings were evaluated in "The General Evaluation" section and so the two methods were combined. Empowerment approach has been discussed in details in the last section in terms of infertility experience; and the suggestions for the counseling services to be presented to infertile individuals have been discussed according to empowerment approach.