Infertility exerts considerable emotional and psychological strain on women seeking to conceive and build a family, which affects their quality of life. Psychological capital, marital satisfaction, and behavioral coping strategies can significantly enhance the quality of life for infertile women. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationships between marital satisfaction, psychological capital, effective behavioral coping, and the quality of life among women experiencing infertility.
Purposive sampling recruited 103 women aged 24 to 40 with infertility from different fertility clinics in Varanasi, India. Participants were assessed with a socio-demographic sheet, the Effective Behavioural Coping Checklist developed by researcher, Enrich Marital Satisfaction by Fowers and Olson (1993), the Compound Psychological Capital scale by Lorenz (2016) and the FertiQoL Scale by Boivin, J., Takefman, J., and Braverman, A. (2008). The relationships between the variables were explored using descriptive statistics, correlational analysis, and hierarchical regression
The correlational analysis reveals that psychological capital (PsyCap) is central, showing moderate positive correlations with quality of life and effective behavioral coping.
Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that marital satisfaction alone accounted for 3.5% of the variance in quality of life (Adjusted R² = .026). Adding psychological capital increased the explained variance to 18.9% (Adjusted R² = .173). The inclusion of effective behavioral coping contributed minimally, with a negligible increase in R² to 19.0% (Adjusted R² = .166), and psychological capital emerges as a substantial predictor of quality of life.
These findings provide empirical evidence regarding the influence of psychological capital on the quality of life and behavioral coping among infertile women. It is crucial to offer infertile women fertility-related interventions that enhance hope, resilience, and self-efficacy, ultimately improving their overall quality of life.