Unfulfilled desire for pregnancy: Gender and family differences in emotional burden among a Nigerian sample

Abstract

The aims of this study were to compare anxiety and depressive symptoms between a sample of Nigerian women and their husbands on treatment for infertility, and to identify factors, which are associated with emotional burden in their families. In total, 82 women and their spouses completed the two subscales of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) at the gynaecology clinics of a Nigerian teaching hospital. The women had a significantly higher mean anxiety score (p<0.001) and higher mean depression score (p <0,001) than their husbands. On both anxiety and depression subscales of the HADS, the scores of the women were positively correlated with their husbands' scores (p<00.1). Emotional burden in the family was significantly associated with low religious inclination of husband and wife; strained relationship of couple; extended family pressure on husband; husbands' negative attitude towards child adoption; and lower age group of wife. Women with infertility in this subregion experience higher emotional burden than their husbands. Psychological couple counselling is required to ameliorate the emotional burden of infertility imposed by these factors.

Gender differences in experiences with and adjustments to infertility: A literature review

“…Three other studies reported that women scored higher than men on anxiety using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Anderson et al, 2003;Fatoye et al, 2008;Slade et al, 2007). Two studies that utilized the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory revealed that females of infertile couples scored higher on trait anxiety than their husbands (Edelmann and Connolly, 2000;Karlidere et al, 2007), while only one of the studies showed gender differences in the score on state anxiety (the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, female vs. male: m = 36.72 vs. 32.80) (Edelmann and Connolly, 2000).…”

“…The mean score in the Brief Symptom Inventory was 1.03 for women and 0.47 for men (Brucker and McKenry, 2004). The studies that used the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale yielded mean scores of 3.93 vs. 2.34 (Slade et al, 2007), and 6.05 vs. 3.23 for women and men, respectively (Fatoye et al, 2008). One study reported that, with a score of higher than 10 in the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, 2.7% of women and 1.8% of men were classified as depressed, and the gender differences remained unchanged at the 6-month followup session (Anderson et al, 2003).…”

“…A total of 17 studies measured depression among infertile couples using a variety of instruments: the Beck Depression Inventory (Bak et al, 2012;Chachamovich et al, 2010;Cserepes et al, 2013;Edelmann and Connolly, 2000;Galhardo et al, 2011;Gü leç et al, 2011;Karlidere et al, 2007;Pinto-Gouveia et al, 2012;Sultan and Tahir, 2011), the Self-Rating Depression Scale (Liu and Zhao, 2011), the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (Musa et al, 2014), the Brief Symptom Inventory (Brucker and McKenry, 2004), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Anderson et al, 2003;Fatoye et al, 2008;Slade et al, 2007), the Symptom Checklist (Wischmann et al, 2009), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Maximova and QuesnelVallé e, 2009).…”

Prevalence and risk factors of the female sexual dysfunction in a sample of infertile Iranian women

“…For both, anxiety and depression, scores of 0-7, 8-10 and 11-21 are considered normal, borderline and abnormal respectively. The HADS has previously been used as a psychological screening tool in infertile women [29][30][31][32]. A validation study of an Iranian version of the HADS indicated the translated version to be an acceptable, reliable and valid measure of psychological symptoms in Iranian patients [32].…”

An introduction to infertility counseling: a guide for mental health and medical professionals

“…Nearly all studies confirm that women experience greater amounts of infertility-related stress [21]. Women are also more likely than men to report depression and anxiety symptoms, take a more active role in medical treatment, and respond more poorly following treatment failure [22][23][24]. Men experience infertility stress, but appear less emotionally affected and are more willing to consider treatment termination [23,24].…”