Personal Growth and Life Satisfaction during Fertility Treatment-A Comparison between Arab and Jewish Women.

Coping with difficulty conceiving and the ensuing fertility treatments is a stressful experience that impacts many aspects of women's lives. On the basis of Lazarus and Folkman's model of stress and coping and Schaefer and Moos's model of personal growth, and in view of the sparse literature on cultural aspects of infertility and personal growth, this study examined the relationship between stress on the one hand and personal growth and life satisfaction on the other among Arab and Jewish Israeli women. Furthermore, it investigated the moderating role played by perceived stigma, coping flexibility, cultural orientation (individualism and collectivism), and ethnicity. Two hundred five Arab and Jewish Israeli women undergoing fertility treatment completed self-report questionnaires. The results show that Arab women reported higher levels of personal growth and individualism than Jewish women. In the whole sample, a linear negative relationship was found between stress and life satisfaction, and a curvilinear relationship was found between stress and personal growth. In addition, perceived stigma, collectivism, individualism, and coping flexibility were found to moderate the association between perceived stress and personal growth. The findings provide further understanding of personal growth in the context of infertility, showing that personal resources and perceptions are more important than cultural differences in this regard.

Psychological distress, optimism and emotion regulation among Israeli Jewish and Arab pregnant women during COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy is a vulnerable period for women, and it is especially so under the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas there is some evidence for distress among pregnant women during the outspread of COVID-19, little is known about the second wave of the pandemic. We therefore sought to examine the contribution of background variables, ethnicity (Jewish, Arab), personal resources (optimism, emotion regulation), and COVID-19-related anxieties to pregnant Israeli women's psychological distress. METHOD: A convenience sample of 1127 Israeli women was recruited from 5 July to 7 October 2020. RESULTS: Not having an academic degree, lower economic status, being an Arab woman, poorer physical health, lower levels of optimism and cognitive reappraisal, higher levels of emotion suppression and COVID-19-related anxieties all contributed significantly to greater psychological distress. Finally, ethnicity moderated the relationship between optimism and emotion suppression and the woman's level of psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: The findings reveal risk and resilience factors associated with the psychological distress of pregnant women during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the potentially greater vulnerability of women from a minority group, showing that ethnicity plays a central role in the way personal resources are related to psychological distress at such times.

Secondary traumatization and personal growth of healthcare teams in maternity and neonatal wards: The role of differentiation of self and social support.

It is of utmost importance to examine the consequences of healthcare teams' daily exposure to stress. This quantitative cross-sectional study examined the connection between exposure, secondary traumatization (stress deriving from helping suffering others), and personal growth. It compared the teams in maternity and neonatal wards with colleagues exposed to different levels of illness and death and examined the contribution of social support and self-differentiation to personal growth. One hundred forty-nine Israeli physicians and nurses participated, comprising three groups (maternity and neonatal wards, exposed to suffering as well as to new life; high; and moderate-to-low exposure to illness and death). Data were collected through an online program (64.78% response rate). Whereas no group differences in secondary traumatization were found, personal growth was higher among individuals from maternity and neonatal wards. The higher the social support and self-differentiation, the higher was the personal growth. The findings highlight the necessity to design interventions to empower social support and investing in its development on both the organizational and personal level, especially for the maternity and neonatal wards' healthcare teams.