Emotional and coping response of married Filipino couples on infertility

• Main Author: Ortega, Marissa Castillo
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1999
• Subjects: Infertility; Coping behavior; Emotions; Married people; Emotional conditioning; Conditioned response; Applied Behavior Analysis; Counselor Education; Health Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1998
• Institution: De La Salle University

This is an exploratory-descriptive study which focuses on married couple's emotional response and coping behavior towards infertility. Thirty infertile couples, residents of Cotabato City, were purposively chosen and individually interviewed. It was discovered that the couples in the sample married between the ages of 25 to 29 years, were highly educated and have an income of P5,000.00 and above per month. Data indicate that a majority of these men and women have satisfactory level of knowledge on infertility. All of them adhere to the belief that a child is a gift from God/Allah and a majority of them contend that the husband and wife relationship is stronger if they have a child. Few of the infertile couples interviewed have an adopted child. Those who do, aged 35 to 45 years, have experienced severe emotional response compared to younger couples who did not. This study also found out that respondents from the low-income bracket have employed defensive coping while those who have high income and who were married for more than 10 years have employed compensative coping. Results reveal that defensive coping offers an amount of comfort to infertile couples in the sample. Recommendations are forwarded to the Department of Health and other NGOs concerned with health that infertility services must be initiated to determine relevant statistics on male and female infertility and that it should be expanded to other DOH retained hospitals and eventually to other provincial hospitals throughout the country. Research with emphasis on the emotional and coping response among couples with adopted children in a larger sample is also extended.