Does fertility-specific distress vary by race/ethnicity among a probability sample of women in the United States?

Authors

Arthur L. Greil, Alfred UniversityFollow
Julia McQuillan, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Delida Sanchez, University of Texas, AustinFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2-2016

Citation

Published in Journal of Health Psychology 21:2 (February 2016), pp. 183– 192 doi: 10.1177/1359105314524970

Comments

Copyright © 2014 Arthur L Greil, Julia McQuillan, and Delida Sanchez. Published by SAGE Publications. Used by permission.

Abstract

This study explored whether fertility-specific distress varied by race/ethnicity among a nationally representative sample of US women. Participants were 2363 White (n = 1266), Black (n = 569), Hispanic (n = 453), and Asian (n = 51) women who participated in the National Survey of Fertility Barriers. Participants were given the Fertility-Specific Distress Scale and assessed for strength of pregnancy intent, primary versus secondary infertility, and socioeconomic hardship. Black women reported lower levels of fertility-specific distress than White women, but these were fully mediated by the strength of pregnancy intentions. Primary versus secondary infertility and economic hardship were not associated with fertility-specific distress.