Psychosocial Aspects of Infertility and Medically Assisted Reproduction in Serbia: A COMPI-Based Single Centre Study.

Background

Infertility affects millions of people causing grave societal and health consequences (poor physical and mental wellbeing). Aims: To translate and validate the COMPI scale in Serbian and examine associations of infertility-related stress, coping strategies and evaluation of care with medically assisted reproduction (MAR) outcomes in female Serbian infertility patients.

Methods

The study included patients undergoing MAR for four months. Participants completed a socio-demographic and gynecologic questionnaire, the Serbian-translated COMPI scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Zung Self-Rating Depression scale (ZDS). Serbian COMPI was validated in the classic manner. Associations between COMPI scores and pregnancy outcomes were analyzed by Spearman's correlation and multivariable regression.

Results

A total of 107 women participated and 24.3% achieved pregnancy. The Serbian COMPI demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach alpha = 0.838). Compared with reference COMPI data, personal, social and marital stress scores were higher, while meaning-based coping and marital benefit scores were lower. Regression analysis showed that higher marital stress, partner communication difficulties and meaning-based coping were associated with higher pregnancy likelihood.

Conclusions

Serbian patients undergoing MAR reported high infertility-related stress and predominantly used active coping strategies. Patients who applied meaning-based coping were more likely to achieve pregnancy.