Men’s Marital Adjustment and Violence against Female Partners in Couples Applying for Infertility Treatment

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Infertility is a life-changing experience that brings with it medical, psychiatric, psychological, and social problems, with cultural, religious, and social aspects, individual-specific, leadings to stress in couples, resulting in social labeling, sexual dysfunction. Many factors can trigger or increase the severity of infertility. Couples failing to achieve one of the basic functions of the family institution, also experience negativities in marriage. This study aimed to determine the severity of violence by men to his partner and the marital adjustment level in men in couples applying for infertility treatment. METHODS: The study population consisted of 286 men from the couples applying to Cukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Infertility Outpatient Clinic June -October 2017. The data was collected using the Sociodemographic Data Form, Conflict Tactic Scale-2, Marital Adjustment Scale. Data analyzed using SPSS 20.0 Statistical analysis program. RESULTS: The mean age of men was 34.79±7.24 years, the mean duration of marriage was 5.87±4.86 years and the mean age at first marriage was 26.33±5.09 years. Of the participants, 93.4% were violent against their spouses based on the Conflict Tactics Scale-2 results. There was no significant relationship between the overall violence by men and any of the sociodemographic data. Marital Adjustment Scale revealed that there was a marital adjustment in 80.4% of men. A significant relationship was found between marital adjustment and sociodemographic variables including occupation, previous infertility treatment, and marital status. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The men practiced violence against their wives and that the most common type of violence was psychological violence. In infertile couples, the majority of men had good marital adjustment and they did not seem to be affected by infertility.