INFERTILITY AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING - THE MEDIATING ROLES OF SELF-ESTEEM, INTERNAL CONTROL, AND INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT

Infertility is a major negative life event which has deleterious effects on women's and men's subjective well-being. The relationships between self-esteem, perceived control, interpersonal conflict between spouses, global and intimacy life quality, and the stress produced by infertility were examined in a study of 185 married infertile couples. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that fertility problem stress had indirect negative effects on life quality via its mediating effects on self-esteem, internal control, and interpersonal conflict. The implications of these results for future research are discussed.