Swedish TV debut for Doctoral Trainee Health Psychologist

There is not enough research into how infertility affects women from ethnic minority populations, Glasgow Caledonian Doctoral Trainee Health PsychologistArooj Shahzadi Akram told a Swedish TV news channel.

Speaking on SVT Nyheter, Arooj, who is in her final year of the DPsych Health Psychology programme, said that for some women, not being able to have children feels like a trauma comparable to a divorce or the death of a parent.

Arooj’s research shows that for women from ethnic minorities, the trauma can be double. Expectations from family, culture and religion may also have significant impact lived experiences of infertility.

She highlighted that in some cultures, there are traditional expectations that women should dedicate their lives to having children.

Arooj hopes that her research can help support healthcare professionals when developing new methods and ways of working, and help health care professionals understand what support the affected women need.

Her research work partly coincides with the University’s new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) vision and EDI strategy by highlighting the importance of diversity, belonging and wellbeing with lived experiences surrounding infertility.

Arooj said she was delighted to get the chance to talk about her infertility research on an international media platform and thanked her research supervisor Dr Jan Smith, Lecturer in Psychology and Health Psychologist in the Department of Psychology, for her support and guidance.

Watch her interview here on SVT - https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/forskaren-dubbelt-trauma-for-vissa-ofrivilligt-barnlosa

Arooj has also written a piece about her research in the Female Health and Fertility magazine - https://femalehealthandfertility.com/category/author/arooj-akram/

Find out more about the wide range of psychology courses at Glasgow Caledonian’s School of Health and Life Sciences - https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/subjects/psychology