title: Social Consequences of Infertility on Families in Iran.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Social reactions to infertility are one of the concerns infertile people. This study aimed to investigate the social consequences of infertility among urban and rural population of Shahroud in northeast of Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study is a comparative study that was conducted in 2013. In this study, 1,528 women (511 infertile and 1017 fertile ones) were randomly selected. The 36-item questionnaire included 18 items about women's attitude towards infertility and 18 questions about the consequences of infertility was used. Data were analyzed using chi-square test, one-way analysis of variance and t test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The prevalence of infertility in rural areas was estimated to be 2.23 percent. 42.2% of the participants were living the city (n= 645) and 57.8 % were living in the village (n= 883). 49.2% of the participants had education below high school diploma (n=751), 31.7% had high school diploma (n=484) and 19.2% had university degrees (n=293). 51.9% of the people referred to the infertility problem among distant relatives, 24.9% referred to infertility among the close relatives and 9% reported the infertility among their family members. The mean score of attitude of the fertile was 56.6±7.0 and that of the infertile was 56.8± 6.6 and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P>0.05). There was a significant association between fertility status and encouraging divorce, encouraging remarriage and encouraging adoption (P = 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Infertility causes a negative attitude toward infertile people. But the interference of others leads to further encouragement of divorce and remarriage among the infertile people.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Public Health, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences. Shahroud, Iran.. m_amiri_71@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amiri
authors.forename: Ahmad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khosravi
authors.forename: Reza
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chaman
authors.forename: Zakieh
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sadeghi
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Raei
authors.forename: MohammadAli
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jahanitiji
authors.forename: Fardin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mehrabian
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D004243:Divorce / Q000523:psychology*; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires