“No strength to stop”: Persevering in fertility treatment despite repeated failures – A qualitative investigation

IF 1.5 3区 社会学 Q2 WOMENS STUDIES
Yael Benyamini , Maayan Bat-Chen Abramov , Elinor Dori , Ronit D. Leichtentritt
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Abstract

Fertility treatments foster hope of fulfilling the desire for parenthood. However, the difficulties they entail and the decreasing success rates over time raise questions regarding discontinuing treatment, a difficult decision that often happens because of financial constraints. Israel is a highly pronatalist country, where fertility treatments are mostly covered by the State. Thus, it serves as a living laboratory to study the psychological processes involved in decisions about treatment continuation after repeated failures, setting aside financial considerations. We aimed to examine the decision-making process women undergo when choosing to continue in-vitro-fertilization (IVF) despite low odds of success, and the strategies they implement in carrying out the decision to continue. We conducted in-depth interviews with fourteen women, ages 33–45, who had undergone between 4 and 28 IVF cycles. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings showed no evidence of deliberation or hesitation in the decision process, as informants raised no doubts concerning treatment continuation. This confident stance was rooted in three themes: (a) personal, interpersonal, and social motivations; (b) an inability to identify alternatives; and (c) strategies for keeping motivation and optimism, even when the objective chances of success were low. Interpreting the findings from decision-making, self-regulation and self-identity perspectives, suggests that the seemingly irrational perseverance in treatment may be rational, given the social context in which the women are operating. The study raises the need for support in decision-making along the treatment process and for promoting social discourse that legitimizes broader acceptance of diverse family structures and attitudes towards parenthood.
“没有力量停止”:尽管多次失败,仍坚持生育治疗-一项定性调查
生育治疗培养了满足为人父母愿望的希望。然而,它们所带来的困难和随着时间的推移成功率的下降引发了关于停止治疗的问题,这是一个困难的决定,通常是由于财政限制而发生的。以色列是一个高度生育主义的国家,生育治疗大多由国家负担。因此,它可以作为一个活生生的实验室来研究反复失败后决定继续治疗的心理过程,而不考虑经济因素。我们的目的是研究女性在选择继续体外受精(IVF)时所经历的决策过程,尽管成功率很低,以及她们在执行继续决定时所采取的策略。我们对14位年龄在33-45岁之间的女性进行了深入的访谈,她们接受了4到28个试管婴儿周期。访谈采用主题分析法进行分析。调查结果显示,在决定过程中没有任何考虑或犹豫的证据,因为举报者对治疗的继续没有任何怀疑。这种自信的立场植根于三个主题:(a)个人、人际和社会动机;(b)无法确定替代方案;(c)保持动力和乐观的策略,即使客观上成功的机会很低。从决策、自我调节和自我认同的角度来解释这些发现,表明在治疗过程中看似非理性的坚持可能是理性的,考虑到这些女性所处的社会背景。这项研究提出了在治疗过程中支持决策的需要,并提出了促进社会话语的需要,使更广泛地接受多样化的家庭结构和对为人父母的态度合法化。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.50
自引率
7.10%
发文量
63
审稿时长
79 days
期刊介绍: Women"s Studies International Forum (formerly Women"s Studies International Quarterly, established in 1978) is a bimonthly journal to aid the distribution and exchange of feminist research in the multidisciplinary, international area of women"s studies and in feminist research in other disciplines. The policy of the journal is to establish a feminist forum for discussion and debate. The journal seeks to critique and reconceptualize existing knowledge, to examine and re-evaluate the manner in which knowledge is produced and distributed, and to assess the implications this has for women"s lives.
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