Mariana Sousa Leite

I am a doctoral student. I work within the Cardiff Fertility Studies research group, in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Integrative and Translational Research in Population Health (ITR), in the Public Health Institute at the University of Porto (ISPUP) in Portugal.

I have a keen interest in clinical and health psychology. Nowadays, I find myself immersed within various aspects of (in)fertility and parenthood decision-making. My research focuses on the psychosocial adjustment process of patients throughout their fertility journey, but particularly if and when their fertility journey is unsuccessful (i.e., when patients undergo all treatment cycles without achieving the children they wished for). I have been conducting quantitative and qualitative studies on how people form their intentions surrounding reproductive technology and their parenthood goals, and how these intentions evolve over time. I also have been investigating the preferences and views of those involved in reproductive health towards psychosocial support. This research has been informing evidence-based routine practice, in particular the development and evaluation of support tools that aim to facilitate patients’ psychosocial adjustment to unsuccessful fertility treatment.