PURPOSE: This study aimed to translate the Infertility Stigma Scale (ISS) into Korean and evaluate the reliability and validity of ISS in the Korean context. METHODS: Data was
collected form 350 women who had experienced in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Data was analyzed by the SPSS WIN (25.0) and AMOS (22.0) programs. Content validity was analyzed using Item-level content validity index (I-CVI) and Scale-level Content Validity Index/Averaging(S-CVI/Ave). The preliminary survey was conducted on 20 women who had experience of IVF at least once in order to check the level of understanding of the tool and the time required to fill out the questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was used to test construct validity. Convergent validity, known-groups validity, and discriminant validity were also tested. Cronbach’s α was used to assess the reliability. RESULTS: Korean-ISS(K-ISS) consists of 25 items excluding two items from the original ISS’s questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis identified four factors, explaining 75.6% of the total variance. The four distinct factors were infertility stigma with self-devaluation (57.8%), public stigma (8.1%), social withdrawal (6.5%), and family stigma (4.2%). In confirmatory factor analysis, the 25 items in the four-factor structure were validated (RMSEA<.10, AGFI>.70, CFI>.70). The criterion validity of K-ISS against FPI (r=.58∼.71, p <.001) and FQI (r=-.49∼-.65, p <.001) was tested significantly valid. The internal consistency reliability of K-ISS, assessed by Cronbach’s α, was .97. CONCLUSION: As K-ISS has satisfactory construct validity and reliability, it can help to minimize the negative impact of stigma by measuring the stigma of women
experiencing infertility.