Journal of Psychology & Behavioral Science

Patterns of Spiritual Help Seeking Behaviour among Women with Secondary Infertility in Ibadan, Nigeria
Adebayo O. Adejumo, Adekunle Bukola

Abstract
Introduction: Spiritual help-seeking is an illness behavior carried out by an individual who perceives him/herself as needing informal, personal and spiritual assistance with the purpose of resolving a crisis. Little is known about the role of psychological factors (anxiety, life-satisfaction and marital conflict) in spiritual help-seeking among women with secondary infertility. Method: The cross-sectional survey included 240 women with secondary infertility, after multi-stage sampling. An 83-item battery of self-report questionnaire with reliability ranging between .56 and .96 was used for data collection. Descriptive and inferential (multiple-regression; t-test; and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation) statistics were employed with two hypotheses tested. Results: Psychological factors jointly predicted spiritual help-seeking behavior. Life-satisfaction; anxiety; and marital conflict independently predicted spiritual-help seeking. Women with one child reported higher mean score on spiritual help-seeking behavior than those who have two or more children. There was negative relationship between life-satisfaction and spiritual help-seeking, as well as positive relationship between anxiety, life-satisfaction and spiritual help-seeking. Moslems reported more spiritual help-seeking than Christians. Conclusion: These psychological factors are pertinent in forecasting spiritual help-seeking among women with secondary infertility. Attention to these psychological factors in the management of patients with secondary infertility would enhance a broad based patient-centred approach to infertility management.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jpbs.v5n2a6