The Role of Mediating Cognitive Fusion in The Re-lationship between Rumination and Depression in Infertile Women

Background: One of the important areas of health of the infer-tile persons is a psychological aspect that requires special at-tention and prevention of disorders such as depression in them. Cognitive fusion refers to the human tendency to become en-tangled with thoughts as a result of strong belief in their literal content. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of me-diating cognitive fusion in the relationship between rumination and depression in infertile women.Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of 300 infer-tile women referred to the Royan Institute, a referral infertil-ity clinic in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The sampling method was convenient. Four main questionnaires were used includ-ing demographic questionnaire, a patient s health questionnaire (PHQ-9), a cognitive fusion checklist (CFQ) and a rumination questionnaire (RRS-10). Data were analyzed with SPSS software. Statistics including Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis were used to test the research hypotheses. Results: The results of this study showed that there was a sig-nificant positive correlation between cognitive rumination and cognitive fusion (P <0.001, r = 0.611), rumination and depres-sion (P = 0.001, r = 0.336) and cognitive fusion and depression (P <0.001 and r = .5881). Conceptual model of research and standardized coefficients.Conclusion: In general, it can be concluded that cognitive fu-sion and rumination are factors affecting depression in infertile women. Therefore presence of psychologists and psychiatrists in diagnostic and treatment centers of infertility is necessary in order to identify the risk factors and to educate the correct ways of dealing with feelings of inadequacy and depression through their expertise.

Keywords:

Cognitive Fusion , Rumination , Depression , Infertility