[Etiology and coping with involuntary childlessness--are there specificic motivations for wanting a child?].
OBJECTIVE
Do patients with functional sterility have special motivations to have a child? Could these motivations be an underlying reason for their sterility opposed to patients with organic sterility? Are there any specific motivations to have a child in patients with strong desires to have children?


METHODS
80 patients attending an infertility clinic were evaluated using an interview, questionnaire and Giessen-Test (GT).


RESULTS
The motivation to have a child is not different in women with organic and functional sterility. Women with a strong desire to have children express significantly less often, that a child would contribute for them to achieve fulfilling life. But they express more frequently the hope to find a successful treatment for their sterility.


CONCLUSIONS
It can not be conducted that psychosomatic disorders are the true cause for sterility in absence of organic pathology. This would not consider the complexity of psychosomatic processes. Coping mechanism are more important than the underlying etiology of sterility.
Gross
J
J
Abteilung für Gynäkologie und Geburtshilfe, Krankenhaus Waldfriede, Berlin.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009042:Motivation; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires