Psychosexual empowerment strategies in infertile women: A systematic review

Abstract

Infertility requires long-term treatment, and it is linked with a wide range of psychological consequences, having a negative effect on the sexual health of couples. This study aims to investigate psychosexual empowerment strategies through a systematic review of previous clinical trials. In this systematic review, national and international databases were investigated to find the relevant articles, including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, SID, Magiran, and IranMedex. The articles between 2003 and 2023 without any language restrictions were searched. The quality of the articles was evaluated using Jadad criteria. In addition, inclusion criteria included the intervention studies regarding mental and physical health enhancement, with a quality score of three or higher. Ultimately, 20 studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected for the systematic review of this study. The results indicated that educational and counseling interventions can improve psychosexual health in infertile women in five domains: "sexual self-efficacy," "sexual satisfaction," "sexual intimacy," "sexual self-esteem," and "sexual anxiety." Psychological counseling and sexual education can be effective in psychosexual empowerment and improving the quality of life of infertile women. More systematic reviews are required to investigate the effect of sex-specific interventions to improve the psychosexual health of these women.