Souffrance conjugale et assistance médicale a la procréation (AMP) : le cas du conjoint camerounais infertile

Abstract

This work deals with the experience of the ART procedure of the infertile Cameroonian spouse who faces a proposal for AID in a cultural context where male infertility is still taboo and where this practice is not yet really anchored in mores. Indeed, the ART procedure of these people, relative to their suffering, remains very little studied in research in clinical psychology. We have met infertile spouses engaged in this ART procedure. Our observations show that some give up; others continue and others remain undecided in their position. However, according to the theory of cultural relativism in ethnopsychiatry, the suffering that individuals develop takes on meaning in the socio-cultural context to which they belong, in relation to the conception and representation that people have of illness (physical or psychological) in this context, and the treatments are based and supported on this cultural meaning of the disease. The objective here is to understand the ART procedure experience of the infertile Cameroonian spouse given their marital suffering in a context still marked by cultural requirements. For this, this study was conducted with three infertile men whose age varies between 37 and 44. The data were collected using individual semi-structured research interviews and the HADs scale. They were analyzed using the content analysis technique. The results obtained reveal at the level of the HADs scale, the presence of the anxiety-depressive syndrome in all the participants, and at the level of the interviews, the procedure of the ART marked by this suffering is characterized by failures; doubt and camouflage (it is very often masked).