Assisted Reproductive Treatment: the role of Alexithymia, Romantic Attachment, Marital Relationship on Couple’s Quality of Life

Introduction: Fertility problems can cause serious implications for couples’ wellbeing. Aims of the study were to evaluate: possible differences between women and men in quality of life, alexithymia, romantic attachment and quality of marital relationship during an Assisted Reproductive Treatment (ART); predictive effects of these variables on quality of life of women and men. Methods: 84 women (age m=38.1 sd=5.5) and 25 men (m=37.5 sd=5.6) participated in the study. At the beginning of ART women and men completed: socio-demographic questionnaire, Fertility Quality of Life (FertiQuoL), 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), Experience in Close Relationship-Revised (ECR-R) and Couple Relation Inventory (CRI). Results: Differences in FertiQuoL Total (p=.02) Emotional (p=.001), Mind-Body (p=.05) and Tolerability (p=.001) subscales scores emerged in the direction of a lower quality of life in women. Furthermore, women scored significantly higher in TAS-20 Difficulty in Identifying Feelings (DIF;p=.04) and CRI Idealization (p=.01), whereas men scored significantly higher in CRI Erotic Fantasy (p=.04). Several significant associations among quality of life, alexithymia, quality of marital relationship and attachment dimensions were reported in women and men. Regression analysis showed the predictive effect of DIF (p=001) and CRI Attunement with partner (p=.01) on women’s quality of life. Conclusions: The findings support a more severe effect of infertility and its treatments on women than men. The findings highlight the predictive effect of the difficulty in identifying feeling and attunement with the partner on the quality of life of women during the ART. Clinical implication will be discussed.