Abstract
Background: Life stressors can affect infertile women through the release of stress hormones such as cortisol which can lead to physiological changes that impact the reproductive. Aim: The current study aimed to study the relationship between life stressors and infertility. Research Design: A descriptive design was used. Setting: The study was conducted at Gynecological and Obstetrics unit in the International Islamic Center for Population Studies and Research - Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. Sample: Purposive sampling was utilized in the present study to recruit 100 infertile women. Tools: Four tools for data collection. First tool: A structured interviewing questionnaire which consisted of two parts (socio-demographic data and health history). Second tool: Psychosomatic assessment. Third tool: Infertility distress scale. Fourth tool: Stressors assessment sheet. Result: The majority of the studied women sometimes had psychosomatic symptoms that associated with life stressors and all the studied women had distress. Also, the most studied women had life stressors. In addition, there was high statistically relation between total scores of psychosomatic symptoms, infertility distress scale, life stressors and infertility. Conclusion: The present study concluded that there is a relationship between life stressors and infertility. Recommendations: Further studies regarding the relationship between life stressors and infertility on a large sample from different geographic areas in Egypt in order to generalize the results and improve the power of finding.