Self-compassion training and psychological well-being of infertile female

Abstract

Background: The empowerment of psychological well-being is an important and fundamental issue among infertile females. Objective: The present study investigates the effect of teaching self-compassion on the psychological well-being of initial infertile women. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional, quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test, 32 infertile women who were referred to the Yazd Reproductive Sciences Institute during 2016-2017 were enrolled. The participants were randomly divided in two groups as control and experiment (n = 16/each). The participants only in the experimental group received 8 sessions of 90 min training (Self-Compassion Training). Ryff’s psychological well-being questionnaire was applied (reliability coefficient = 0.82) and covariance analysis statistical test was used to test the research hypothesis. Results: There was a significant difference between the estimated mean scores for improving the psychological well-being of the participants in the experiment and control groups (p = 0.007), and the difference indicates that 72.7% of the covariance of the post-test scores is due to self-compassion intervention. Therefore, the intervention of self-compassion training affects the improvement of psychological well-being among infertile women. Also, the pre-test variable is significant with the effect of 94.2% (p = 0.006). Conclusion: The findings showed that teaching self-compassion to initial infertile women has an effect on their psychological well-being.