Battling the Invisible Infertility Agony: A Case Study of Infertile Women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan

This study's main theme is to explore the negative impact of women's infertility on their social life. Only those women who experienced infertility, both primary and secondary, and were currently seeking treatment for their infertility in different Private and Public hospitals/clinics in the study area were selected. Since the exact number of infertile women was unknown in the study area, purposive sampling was adopted while using snowballing techniques to find study participants. Rigorously following the snowball sampling method, data was collected from 400 respondents dealing with the agony of infertility through purposive sampling. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were conducted. The findings indicated that gynaecological problems caused infertility issues that sometimes caused a miscarriage and led to secondary infertility. Moreover, infertility was a cause of deterioration in familial and social relationships. Likewise, infertility contributed to the feeling of social isolation and withdrawal from others. The provision of health services and the diffusion of information regarding infertility treatment and improving current health policies are recommendations based on the study’s findings.