Introduction: The aim of this longitudinal study is to assess how infertile couples accept their diagnosis of infertility when they become parents after In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The relationship between the acceptance of the infertility diagnosis, the marital satisfaction and the perceived infertility-related stress is analyzed.
Material and methods: Research sessions: 1) before IVF 2) at the 5th month of pregnancy or one year after the first research session when there was no pregnancy. Coding of infertility diagnosis's acceptance allows us to classify individuals as Resolved or Unresolved (adaptation of Marvin's Interview, 1993). Marital satisfaction was measured with the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) and infertility-related stress with the Fertility Problem Inventory (Newton, 1999).
Results: Before IVF: marital satisfaction was higher and infertility-related stress was lower for Resolved women compared to Unresolved women. After IVF: pregnant women were more satisfied and non pregnant women perceived less infertility-related stress. The acceptance of the infertility diagnosis was higher after IVF for men and women of both groups.
Conclusion: This study allows the identification of risk factors, such as lack of marital satisfaction and/or infertility-related stress, which could impede the acceptance of the infertility diagnosis. Positive changes were observed between the two research sessions: IVF failure did not seemto impede non pregnant couples to better accept their infertility diagnosis. Men appear less sensitive to the changes observed as the results were more pronounced for women. The next step will be to analyse the postnatal data to follow the evolution of these variables.