Reproductive Mental Health

One in six Canadian women will struggle with infertility during their reproductive lives – half of these women will report that infertility is the most upsetting experience of their lives and 30-40% will develop clinical depression or anxiety as a result. Furthermore, the few treatments that are available have been shown to be largely ineffective in reducing infertility distress, depressive symptoms, and marital functioning. Therefore, there is a need for a new treatment that better addresses the unique challenges that women face when struggling with infertility.

Thanks to funding by the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF) and Saskatchewan Center for Patient-Oriented Research (SCPOR), our research has identified the unique psychological challenges that individuals face as they struggle to conceive. With a panel of patient advocates, we developed a tailored psychological intervention that is more effective at reducing infertility-related distress than what is currently available.

The coping with infertility program was developed by the researchers at the reproductive mental health Research Unit at the University of Regina who are clinical psychologists specializing in the area of distress related to infertility very importantly it was developed in close collaboration with a panel of women who have personal experience with infertility or reproductive loss themselves. You've probably noticed how infertility or loss has impacted you and your close relationships regardless of the specific diagnosis or if the cause is unexplained this program will hopefully equip you with skills to support yourself and possibly those around you through this difficult and uncertain time here's how it works once you've completed this enrollment session you'll be randomly assigned to either begin the self-help program in the near future or to receive it after a 23- we treatment-free monitoring period whether you're assigned to the intervention right away or not is determined completely by chance and is out of the study staff's control if you are randomized to the self-help program once a week for 7 weeks you'll receive an email from our research team containing a link to a 10-minute video introducing a new concept or Focus for that week we would ask that you aim to watch that video within 24 hours of receiving it you'll also be assigned a task for the week it might be practicing thinking about things in a new way or incorporating new activities into your day or talking to a loved one about how they can best support you this part of it is just as important as watching the 10-minute video because it's aimed at taking what you learn in the program and helping you apply it to your day-to-day life we've tried to keep our program as short and sweet as possible by honing in on the most important challenges that people with infertility struggle with briefly our program was designed to Target four main areas anxiety stress and worry depressed mood and hopelessness low self-esteem and guilt social isolation and relationship difficulties in addition to the core program you'll notice that we occasionally refer to additional optional resources in our presentations things like fact sheets tips for troubleshooting or even videos on special topics these aren't required but are there just in case you want additional information or run into challenges and want extra resources one final piece of information every every other week for 16 weeks following the program We'll be asking about your emotional well-being we'll also ask for your overall feedback on what you liked or disliked as well as suggestions for improvement we'll be using this information to improve our program going forward so we really welcome any feedback that you might have even if you're not randomized to the self-help program you will be asked to complete the same bi-weekly surveys about your thoughts and feelings your mood and your quality of life that's it for now take