Quality of life after adopting compared with childbirth with or without assisted reproduction.

• Objective. This study compares quality of life among couples who had adopted a child 4–5.5 years previously with couples whose conception was spontaneous, as well as with couples who had successful or unsuccessful in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. Design. Cross-sectional study. Setting. Tertiary level university hospital. Sample. From the following groups, 979 responses were obtained: adoption; successful IVF; unsuccessful IVF–living with children; unsuccessful IVF–living without children; and childbirth after spontaneous conception (controls). Methods. Quality of life was studied with the Psychological General Well Being (PGWB) and Sense of Coherence (SOC) instruments. Demographic, socio-economic and health data were obtained with additional questionnaires. Multiple variance analysis was applied. Main outcome measures. The PGWB and SOC scores. Results. After adjustment for seven confounders, the adoption group had higher PGWB scores than the unsuccessful IVF–living without children and the controls and higher SOC scores than all other groups. The unsuccessful IVF–living without children had lower PGWB and SOC scores than all other groups. The PGWB and SOC scores among controls did not differ from those with successful IVF or unsuccessful IVF–living with children. Conclusions. Adjusted PGWB and SOC scores revealed a high quality of life in the adoption group. However, the group unsuccessful IVF–living without children had low quality of life scores. Quality of life appears to be independent of the outcome of IVF treatment as long as there are children in the family.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Reproduktionsmedicin och gynekologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Adoption

infertility

in vitro fertilization

well-being

coping

quality of life

sexuell och reproduktiv hälsa

Sexuell och reproduktiv hälsa

Integrated Caring Science

Integrerad vårdutveckling

Caring sciences

Medical sciences

Adoption; infertility; in vitro fertilization; well-being; coping; quality of life

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)