psychometric properties of the fertility quality of life instrument in iranian infertile women

background: infertility and its treatment can have a considerable effect on a person's quality of life (qol). the fertility quality of life (fertiqol) questionnaire is currently the most frequently used instrument to measure qol in people experiencing fertility problem. this study was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the fertiqol in iranian infertile women. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study included 155 women with fertility problems in a referral fertility clinic in tehran, iran from january to march 2014. a battery of instrument was used, including the fertiqol, the satisfaction with life scale (swls), the hospital anxiety and depression scale (hads), and a demographic questionnaire. construct validity of the scale was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). internal consistency was assessed using cronbach’s alpha and convergent validity was examined by correlating the fertiqol with swls and hads. results: the results of the cfa generally supported the four-factor model of core fertiqol and two-factor model of treatment fertiqol. both module of fertiqol and their subscales revealed acceptable internal consistency ranging from 0.643 to 0.911. however, the fertiqol may be improved if q15 and t2 items are removed from the scale. these items had low loadings on relational and environment factor and decreased their internal consistency. the fertiqol and their subscales significantly correlated with both swls and hads, confirming convergent validity. conclusion: the persian version of fertiqol is a valid and reliable instrument to measure qol in infertile women and seems to perform as well as the original english version.