Agreement on perceptions of quality of life in couples dealing with infertility.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the extent to which men and women seeking treatment for infertility were able to accurately perceive their partners' ratings of their quality of life (QOL).

DESIGN

Cross-sectional prospective study. Quality of life was measured as a multidimensional construct.

SETTING

Assisted reproduction clinic of a university hospital.

PARTICIPANTS

One hundred and sixty-two couples participated. The men's and women's mean ages were 36.1 and 32.1 years, respectively. Most participants had no children, and no previous assisted reproduction attempts.

METHODS

Men and women completed the World Health Organization-Quality of Life-Brief (WHOQOL-Brief) and the Beck Depression Inventory independently. Paired t tests were used to explore men's perceptions of their wives' QOL ratings and wives' perceptions of their husbands' ratings. Multiple regression and repeated-measures ANCOVA were used to examine the role of depression.

RESULTS

Proxy assessments were consistently lower than self-reports on the domains of QOL. The influence of depression on agreement was minimal, and no gender effect was observed.

CONCLUSION

Findings indicated little agreement in perceptions of the partner's QOL, with each partner tending to underrate the other's view. Practitioners need to consider the differences between partners to enable partners to better understand and support each other.