A prospective study of the effectiveness of brief professionally-led support groups for infertility patients.

OBJECTIVE: This study prospectively evaluates the effectiveness and patient acceptability of professionally-led support groups in alleviating psychologic distress in infertility patients. METHOD: Sixty-four consecutive patients in a university hospital infertility program were administered a battery of psychologic tests before and after attendance at an 8 weekly session support group. The comparison group consisted of 35 consecutive infertility referrals to the same unit who were not initially offered the support group and were similarly tested over an 8 week period. RESULTS: Support group patients had significantly greater (p less than or equal to 0.01) entry than exit scores on several measures of psychologic distress and depression (the Beck Depression Inventory, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and the Global Severity Index, Anxiety, Depression, Hostility and Obsessive Compulsive Subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory). The Avoidance Coping Style on the Moos Coping Responses Inventory was correlated with a higher Global Severity Index (p less than or equal to 0.01). Comparison group patients had similar psychometric scores to the support group patients at entry but showed no change over 8 weeks. Attenders expressed a high rate of satisfaction with the support group. CONCLUSIONS: Professionally-led support groups are a highly acceptable and effective intervention in self-referred patients in alleviating psychological distress related to infertility.