Stress, Anxiety, and Depression as Precipitants of Infertility: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Abstract

Infertility is a pressing public health issue. Psychosocial factors, including stress, anxiety, and depression, have been associated with chronic health conditions and reproductive dysfunction. However, these factors have been studied primarily as concurrent with or resulting from infertility. We used PRISMA guidelines for systematic literature reviews to identify 29 articles for critical review and graded nine for strength of findings. Despite methodological limitations across studies, findings indicate that stress may be associated with subsequent infertility in women; results for anxiety and depression were equivocal. Future researchers should focus on non-clinic-based prospective studies to better understand these associations in the general population.

Keywords:

• Infertility
• fertility
• stress
• anxiety
• depression

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts to declare.