Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR)
Title
Infertility: Testing a Helpseeking Model
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
February 2006
This paper uses data from a study of 196 infertile women from the Midwestern US to examine a general
theory of help-seeking behavior applied to infertility. All of these women report meeting the medical definition
of infertility—12 months or more of regular intercourse without conception—at some point in their
lives. Only 35 percent of this sample of infertile women identified themselves as having had fertility problems
and only 40 percent had sought medical treatment.
Drawing on prior theories of help-seeking, we examine the effects of symptom salience, life course
cues, attitudes, predisposing factors, and enabling conditions on help-seeking. We posit a model in which
a cognitive dimension (perceived infertility) mediates between these predictors and medical help-seeking.
Symptom salience (experienced infertility while actively trying to get pregnant), low parity, and poor
subjective health are significantly related to perceived infertility, which is, in turn, significantly associated
with help-seeking for infertility. Supporting the conclusion that the cognitive dimension of identifying
oneself as infertile is critical to help-seeking, the relationship of symptom salience to help-seeking is
partially mediated by perceived problems. Internal health locus of control is associated with lower odds
of help-seeking but not to perceived infertility.
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Published in Social Science & Medicine 62:4 (February 2006), pp. 1031–1041; doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.11.012 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02779536 Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. Used by permission.