The first purpose of this study was to examine the effect of infertile women’s psychological discomfort about their condition on their attitudes towards professional help-seeking, and the second purpose was to identify what effect their negative soc...
The first purpose of this study was to examine the effect of infertile women’s psychological discomfort about their condition on their attitudes towards professional help-seeking, and the second purpose was to identify what effect their negative social self-concept and self-concealment had between the two variables.
The research subjects were 297 infertile women who understood the purpose of the study, agreed to participate in this study, had received a diagnosis of infertility, and were undergoing treatment at C infertility center in Seoul Station. With their participation, this study measured psychological discomfort relating to infertility, attitudes towards professional help-seeking, negative social self-concept, and self-concealment. The study’s hypotheses was then tested by conducting hierarchical regression analysis. The analysis results were as follows:
First, it was identified that infertile women’s psychological discomfort influenced their attitudes towards professional help-seeking through mediating their negative social self-concept. Second, analysis showed that self-concealment had a negative moderation effect in the relationship between negative social self-concept and attitude towards professional help-seeking. Third, moderated mediation analysis, using the Process Macro model presented by Hayes (2013), found the moderated mediation effect of infertile women’s self-concealment (developed through their negative social self-concept) between their psychological discomfort and attitudes towards professional help-seeking.
These results suggested that when infertile women held negative social self-concepts, they had a stronger tendency toward self-concealment and were therefore less likely to seek professional help to resolve their psychological discomfort. The final section discussed the implications and suggestions of this study, as well as for further studies.