Donkor Ernestina S, Sandall Jane
School of Nursing, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
Soc Sci Med. 2007 Oct;65(8):1683-94. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.06.003. Epub 2007 Jul 27.
This research aimed to investigate the extent to which women in Southern Ghana seeking infertility treatment perceived themselves as stigmatised in order to investigate the relationship between perceived stigma and infertility-related stress. A survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews in three languages with 615 women receiving infertility treatment on three health sites in Southern Ghana. The majority (64%) of women in this sample felt stigmatised. Sequential multiple regression analyses indicated that higher levels of perceived stigma were associated with increased infertility-related stress. Also women with higher levels of education felt less infertility-related stress. The presence of an existing child/children, the number of years spent in infertility treatment and the type of marriage (monogamous/polygamous union) were less important in predicting stress. The findings suggest that the social status of infertile women derived from other factors can be of importance in minimising the impact of stigmatisation and stress related to infertility. These findings highlight the wider beneficial effects of improved educational opportunities for girls and women.
本研究旨在调查加纳南部寻求不孕症治疗的女性认为自己受到污名化的程度，以探究感知到的污名与不孕症相关压力之间的关系。在加纳南部的三个医疗点，对615名接受不孕症治疗的女性进行了三种语言的面对面访谈式调查。该样本中的大多数女性（64%）感到受到了污名化。逐步多元回归分析表明，更高程度的感知污名与不孕症相关压力的增加有关。此外，受教育程度较高的女性感受到的不孕症相关压力较小。现有子女的存在、接受不孕症治疗的年限以及婚姻类型（一夫一妻制/一夫多妻制）在预测压力方面不太重要。研究结果表明，来自其他因素的不孕女性的社会地位，对于将与不孕症相关的污名化和压力的影响降至最低可能很重要。这些发现凸显了改善女童和妇女教育机会的更广泛有益影响。
