AWARENESS OF THE NEED FOR PROFESSIONAL COUNSELLING SERVICES IN MANAGING PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS ASSOCIATED WITH INFERTILITY CHALLENGES: CASE STUDY OF WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN ASSESSING INFERTILITY TREATMENT AT THE FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTRE LOKOJA.

The study adopted descriptive research survey; the target population for the study was women of reproductive age accessing infertility treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja-Kogi State, the researchers employed purposive sampling technique, a non-probability sampling technique, to select purposive sample which is a non-representative subset of some larger population, for this study. In-line with ethical consideration, respondents? consents was sought and, respondents were also informed of the confidentiality of the result of the findings, and its use for research purpose only. Forty-eight (48) respondents selected among women accessing infertility treatment at the gynecology clinic on two different clinic days: (Tuesdays? and Thursdays? for the period of eight weeks) participated in the study. The researchers developed the questionnaire tagged: [Need for Professional Counselling Services in Infertility Treatment Questionnaire [NFPCSI2TQ] for the study. To establish the reliability of the questionnaire test-retest was employed, the initial draft of the questionnaire was administered on ten (10) non-participated samples twice at the interval of two weeks, result of Pearson Moment product correlation-co-efficiency yielded ?r?= 0.72. A senior lecturer from the department of English-Language, Federal University Lokoja assisted for language editing, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist validated the contents and face validity of the instrument. For statistical analysis, independent sample t-test to test for testing hypotheses formulated for the study. Findings from the study revealed that presently there is no formal professional counselling services put in place in infertility treatment, and respondents were aware of the need for professional counselling services in infertility, so as to adequately manage psychological distress associated with infertility among women with infertility challenges. Recommendations made include the need for inclusion of formal professional counselling services in infertility treatment or at least, physicians namely Obstetrician and Gynecologists should always make referral of women with infertility challenges to professional counselling psychologists.