Journal of Iranian Social Studies

Abstract Illness behavior is considered as a process of Symptoms perception, Meaning Attribution, Expression and Communication, Coping responses, and Help-seeking behavior . Infertility, as an illness, is highly influenced by social and cultural variables. Due to great importance of infertility and having offspring in most of the cultures, the present research deals with studying illness behavior of infertile women also in Mazandaran Province from a medical sociology viewpoint. In order to analyze illness behavior (illness perception and its aspects) Lowenthal's common sense model was used, to explain help- seeking behavior, Gunay's help-seeking behaviour model was applied, and to assess the impact of strength situation and readiness regarding each aspect of illness perception and help-seeking model, Leen White's treatment seeking model was used. We conducted a cross-sectional survey. The data was collected from 95 infertile women who were selected randomly among those referring to state infertility treatment centers of Mazandaran Province . In addition, we used the illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R) and the scale of health control to measure the variables. The Results show that majority of studied respondents (59%) did have average illness perception quality. Moreover, 87% of them showed a modern help-seeking behavior. The findings also showed a significant relationship between some aspects of illness perception and strength and readiness.