Objective  To investigate the relationship among general self-efficacy, infertility-related stress and anxiety in female infertility patients and to provide a theoretical basis for psychological intervention in infertile patients.

  Methods  Totally 548 lately diagnosed female infertility patients were selected with convenience sampling at Shenyang Women's and Children's Hospital in Liaoning province from June 2016 to September 2017. A questionnaire on personal information, the Fertility Problems Inventory (FPI), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) , and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were administered among the patients.

  Results  For all the respondents, the scores of infertility-related stress were 29.42 ± 6.76 for social concern, 28.09 ± 8.04 for conjugal relationship, 26.96 ± 7.28 for rejection of childfree lifestyle, 38.26 ± 9.12 for parenthood need, 19.74 ± 7.55 for sexual concern, 25.11 ± 6.21 for general self-efficacy, and 9.02 ± 3.73 for anxiety, respectively. Correlation analysis demonstrated that general self-efficacy was inversely associated with social concern (r = – 0.163), rejection of childfree lifestyle (r = – 0.250), sexual concern (r = – 0.170), and anxiety (r = – 0.222) (all P < 0.01); anxiety was positively associated with social concern (r = 0.366), rejection of childfree lifestyle (r = 0.255), sexual concern (r = 0.402), relationship concern (r = 0.366), and need for parenthood (r = 0.244) (P < 0.05 for all). The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that self-efficacy partly mediated the relationship between social concern, sexual concern and anxiety, and totally mediated the relationship between rejection of childfree lifestyle and anxiety.

  Conclusion  Infertility-related stress and general self-efficacy are closely correlated with anxiety among female infertility patients.