A survey of relationship between anxiety, depression and duration of infertility

Abstract

BackgroundA cross sectional study was designed to survey the relationship between anxiety/depression and duration/cause of infertility, in Vali-e-Asr Reproductive Health Research Center, Tehran, Iran.MethodsAfter obtaining their consents, 370 female patients with different infertility causes participated in, and data gathered by Beck Depression Inventory(BDI) and Cattle questionnaires for surveying anxiety and depression due to the duration of infertility. This was studied in relation to patients' age, educational level, socio-economic status and job (patients and their husbands).ResultsAge range was 17–45 years and duration and cause of infertility was 1–20 years. This survey showed that 151 women (40.8%) had depression and 321 women (86.8%) had anxiety. Depression had a significant relation with cause of infertility, duration of infertility, educational level, and job of women. Anxiety had a significant relationship with duration of infertility and educational level, but not with cause of infertility, or job. Findings showed that anxiety and depression were most common after 4–6 years of infertility and especially severe depression could be found in those who had infertility for 7–9 years.ConclusionsAdequate attention to these patients psychologically and treating them properly, is of great importance for their mental health and will improve quality of their lives.

Infertility profile, psychological ramifications and reproductive tract infection among infertile women, in northern upper Egypt

“…It was noticed that women with short period (less than three years) of infertility suffered less and had lower psychological distress than those with a long period (three or more than three years) of infertility. These findings contradict with the result of Kee et al (2000) who stated that based on depression scales, infertile patients who had infertility for an intermediate to a long time showed less symptoms than those who are in their first stage of their problem, [61] while in agreement with the findings of other studies as Al-Homaidan (2011) and Ramezanzadeh et al (2004) who showed that psychological distress in infertile women increase with time & depression peaks between the second and third year of infertility and does not come back to normal range until after six years of infertility. [43,54] A longer time period of infertility and repeated, referring to the physicians, infertility would gradually shift to a chronic problem; thus confronting this problem, the infertile women would have experienced monthly cycles of hope and hopelessness, their stress, and depression severity would decrease but would never disappear.…”

“…However, this result was in line with the study done by Noorbala et al (1999) which found that the rate of psychological disorder was higher among working women. [53] It was contradicted what Upkong (2006) and Ramezanzadeh et al (2004) found in their study. They found that depression and/or anxiety were observed more in housewives than in outside employees.…”

“…They found that depression and/or anxiety were observed more in housewives than in outside employees. [44,54] Moreover, Boivin (2003) found that psychological disorders being more common in housewives than in working ones. [55] However, a statistically significant difference was observed among participants working group in relation to depression (p = .003) and tension (p = .000), an office employee in the current study had highest psychological complain in the dimensions of depression (p = .000), anxiety (p = .000) and tension (p = .000) than other jobs.…”

The Relationship between Duration of Infertility and Intrauterine Insemination: A Multi-Centers Study

“…Semen quality, frequency of ejaculation and sperm functions gradually decrease with advancing age. Moreover, the spermatozoa from older men have increased incidence of abnormalities and many children born from older men have an increased chance of abnormalities [26].…”

Emotional problems of Infertile Egyptian women

“…Ramezanzadeh et al [25] clarified that in Islamic and eastern countries such as Iran, family status especially childbearing is very important and valuable. In Egyptian culture, negative attitude toward infertility are so miserable.…”