Earlier this year, our randomized controlled trial of Overcome Fertility Stress was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Women using the program showed a significant reduction in infertility related stress, an average drop of 22.85 points on the Fertility Problem Inventory, while the waitlist control group showed no significant change. The pre to post effect size was large (Cohen's d = 1.70).
Numbers like that are easy to put in a stat card and move on from, so I want to slow down on what they actually mean. A large effect size in a controlled trial means the improvement wasn't just people getting used to their situation, or regression to the mean, it was measured against a comparable group who did not receive the program and saw no equivalent change.
The Fertility Problem Inventory isn't a single mood score, it's built from five subscales that each capture a different way infertility can take over someone's life. Social Concern covers the isolation of feeling different from friends and family, and dreading the next baby shower or pregnancy announcement. Sexual Concern covers what happens when sex becomes a scheduled task tied to ovulation timing rather than something enjoyed. Relationship Concern covers the strain treatment puts on a couple, the disagreements and quiet distance that can build up under the weight of it. Need for Parenthood measures how central having a child has become to a person's sense of identity and purpose. Rejection of a Childfree Lifestyle measures how unable someone feels to picture or accept a life without children, even as an alternative worth considering. Together with an overall global stress score, these five subscales are what a total score on the inventory actually adds up. A drop of 22.85 points on a scale that runs from 46 to 276 means the improvement wasn't confined to one narrow slice of the experience. It reflects movement across how isolated someone feels, how strained their relationship has become, and how much room they have to imagine a life, and a self, beyond the outcome of treatment.
This trial followed an earlier 2023 feasibility study, itself run with no control group, which is why we were careful not to claim efficacy from it alone at the time. The point of running the controlled trial afterwards was precisely to test whether the early promising signal held up under stricter conditions. It did.
Fertility related distress is still an area where psychological support is rarely offered as standard care, despite good evidence that it should be. That's the gap Overcome Fertility Stress was built to close, and it's why we keep publishing the results rather than just describing them.