Anxiety and depression symptoms in infertile men during their first infertility evaluation visit

Abstract

Objective: To assess the psychological condition of men at the start of the infertility work-up.

Methods: Men seeking an infertility evaluation for the first time were recruited. Depression and anxiety symptoms and subjective psychological burden were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and a visual analog scale (VAS).

Results: Data from 113 patients were analyzed. The mean age of the patients was 33.3 (range: 23–54) years, whereas the mean duration of infertility was 16.3 (range: 0–96) months. Results from the BDI and STAI were 2.24 (SD: ±3.18) and 33.74 (SD: ±8.04). Mild depressive symptoms were found in 4.5% of patients, whereas anxiety reached an abnormal level in 4.9%. There were significant correlations between the results from the BDI score and the duration of infertility (p = .024), whereas the STAI and VAS scores showed no similar connection (p = .142 and p = .261, respectively). Among patients with infertility longer than 2 years, mild depressive symptoms occurred in 23.1%.

Conclusion: Among men, the levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms were low at the start of the infertility work-up. Depressive symptom levels increased significantly with the duration of infertility, whereas anxiety levels and VAS scores did not demonstrate a similar correlation.

Keywords:

• Depression
• anxiety
• infertility
• men

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Current knowledge on this subject

• Infertility is one of the most stressful problems in the life of a couple. It has been demonstrated that infertility increases the levels of anxiety and depression symptoms both in men and women. While the reported data indicate that childlessness has a more pronounced impact on the mental health of women than on that of men, studies on men have gained increasing importance in recent years.

What this study adds

• This study appears to be the first one to evaluate the general anxiety and depression levels of the male partner before any fertility investigation. In this population, only low levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms were demonstrated. Depression symptomatology showed a weak, but significant correlation with the duration of infertility as early as the time of the first visit. The duration of childlessness did not affect the level of anxiety, which seems to develop later, during the infertility treatment.