Counselling patients with infertility problems

Abstract

The present biomedical model of health care fails to consider the psychosocial aspects of problems of health and illness. Nevertheless, guidance and support through appropriate treatment remains a necessity, especially for patients with chronic and complex diseases. Moreover, information about the disease and its treatment is important with regard to a successful outcome. Health care providers should also pay attention to the psychosocial impact of the disease on the patient, on his or her family and on the wider social context. Counselling infertility patients adds a new dimension to this process: new reproductive technologies offer infertile patients the possibility of setting up a family, but at the cost of turning the parenting wish into a very stressful event. Fertility problems and the fertility treatment itself tend to place a lot of stress on the emotional and sexual relationship of the infertile couple. Although infertile patients focus on such treatments as providing a means to become parents, they should also be able to cope with possible failure. On the other hand, if the treatment succeeds patients should not only be guided through the treatment but also informed about possible psychological and social consequences that might affect them as future parents, their parent-child relationship and the family dynamics. If it is considered that this kind of treatment involves a new life, one might expect psychological counselling to be an essential part of it.