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Effectiveness of mindful self-compassion therapy on psychopathology symptoms, psychological distress and life expectancy in infertile women treated with in vitro fertilization : a two-arm double-blind parallel randomized controlled trial
Sahraian, Kimia Abdollahpour Ranjbar, Hamed Namavar Jahromi, Bahia Cheung, Ho Nam Ciarrochi, Joseph Habibi Asgarabad, Mojtaba
Sahraian, Kimia
Abdollahpour Ranjbar, Hamed
Namavar Jahromi, Bahia
Cheung, Ho Nam
Ciarrochi, Joseph
Habibi Asgarabad, Mojtaba
Abstract
Objectives: Infertility is a prominent problem affecting millions of couples worldwide. Recently, there has been a hightened emphasis on elucidating the subtle linkages between infertility treatment leveraging assisted reproductive technology and the complex realm of psychological challenges, as well as efforts in implementation of psychological interventions.The Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program seeks to improve self-compassion, compassion for others, mindfulness, and life satisfaction while reducing depression, anxiety, and stress. In the current study, an MSC intervention was performed on infertile women (IW) undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) to assess the effectiveness of this intervention in reducing psychological distress and psychopathological symptoms and enhancing life expectancy.
Methods: Fifty-seven IW undergoing IVF were randomly allocated to two groups: MSC (n = 29) or treatment as usual (TAU; n = 28). Participants in MSC met once a week for two hours for eight weeks and attended a half-day meditation retreat. The Synder's Hope questionnaire and the Revised 90-Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R) were used as the primary outcome measures. Data were obtained before the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and two months post-intervention. Repeated measures of ANCOVA and paired t-tests in all assessment points were used to compare the MSC and the TAU groups in outcomes.
Results: In the MSC group, hopelessness, anger-hostility, anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity difficulties, and depression were significantly reduced compared with the TAU group, and those improvements persisted at the two-month follow-up. Reliable change index revealed that the MSC group's gains were both clinically significant and durable.
Conclusions: MSC can facilitate higher life satisfaction and mental well-being for IW undergoing IVF by reducing psychological distress, psychopathological symptoms, and hopelessness. These encouraging findings call for more research into the effectiveness of mindfulness-based therapies in addressing psychological problems among IW undergoing IVF.
Keywords
Mindfulness-based intervention, Self-compassion, Infertility, Psychological distress, In vitro fertilization
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
24
Issue
1
Page Range
1-17
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Positive Psychology and Education
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
Open access
License
CC BY 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© The Author(s) 2024.
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This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.