The effect of episodic anxiety on an in vitrofertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatment outcome: a pilot study

Abstract

This study examines whether the inconsistent and contradictory findings from prospective studies on the effect of psychosocial factors on treatment outcome of in vitro fertilization (IVF) can be explained by the fact that no clear distinction has been made between acute and chronic emotional stress responses. Because chronicity is difficult to measure within the context of an IVF-procedure, the focus of the present study was on episodic anxiety. We compared its predictive value on treatment outcome after the second IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with the predictive value of trait anxiety and acute anxiety.In a prospective study with 47 women who failed to conceive after the first IVF, state anxiety was measured both before and after the first IVF treatment. Episodic anxiety was operationalized as high state anxiety both before and after the first IVF treatment. Student's t-test and logistic regression analysis were used to determine the predictive value of episodic anxiety compared with acute or trait anxiety.Women with episodic anxiety, but not those with high levels of trait or acute anxiety, were less likely to become pregnant after the second IVF/ICSI.The results suggest that future studies should differentiate between acute and chronic stress, when examining the effects of psychosocial factors on treatment outcome after a fertility treatment.

• acute stress
• chronic stress
• episodic anxiety
• in vitrofertilization (IVF)
• treatment outcome