Association of spiritual health with mental health status, and quality of life among women with infertility: A systematic review.

Abstract

Background: Spirituality is currently a major focus of health care provision. Given the lack of systematic reviews on how spiritual health interrelates with mental health status and quality of life among infertile women, this review was conducted.

Objective: To investigate the association of spiritual health with mental health status and quality of life among women with infertility.

Materials and methods: The current systematic review was conducted according to the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses as well as meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology guidelines. Online databases, including PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and PsycInfo, were systematically searched, along with the manual search of Google Scholar search engine. The search was conducted in both Farsi and English language by 2 independent reviewers, without a time limit, until July 2025. The quality of included cross-sectional studies were assessed using a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale with a maximum score of 7. The eligible studies were reviewed, and extracted data were narratively synthesized.

Results: Of the 275 identified articles, 19 were reviewed in terms of eligibility, and 10 cross-sectional studies (involving 1852 infertile women) were included. The majority of studies scored below 5, indicating low methodological quality. The results showed that higher spiritual health was associated with lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. However, regarding quality of life, the results were contradictory.

Conclusion: Spiritual health is associated with reduced psychological distress in women with infertility. However, given the limited number and generally low quality of available studies,the findings should be interpreted with caution, underscoring the need for further research with more robust designs.