The impact of infertility diagnosis on psychological status of women undergoing fertility treatment

Abstract

Despite the great number of studies conducted to examine the impact of infertility on the psychological status of women undergoing infertility treatment, little is known about the psychological impact of infertility when it is due to male or female factors and its role in the cause of higher levels of anxiety and stress. The aim of this cross‐sectional study was to assess the impact of infertility diagnosis on infertile women's levels of anxiety, depression and fertility‐related stress. The study involved 404 women undergoing fertility treatment in a public clinic in Athens. The research instruments were three self‐administrated questionnaires. State and trait anxiety, infertility‐related stress (personal, social and marital domain) and depression were measured. Most of the women in this sample had low levels of infertility‐related stress and a low score for depression, but higher scores of state and trait anxiety than the published normative scores. Women with male factor infertility had higher levels of state anxiety (p = 0.007) and social stress (p = 0.007) than women with female, mixed and unknown infertility. Women with idiopathic infertility also had higher levels of trait anxiety (p = 0.001). Thus, the psychological status of women is strongly related to the aetiology of the infertility problem, and as a result it is necessary for women undergoing treatment for infertility to have an individualised psychological support, based on their infertility problem.

Keywords:

• assisted reproduction
• infertility
• psychosocial factors
• quantitative methods
• emotional