Evaluation of depression and anxiety in couples with infertility and related factors

Infertility is associated with high levels of stress which can pose a tremendous challenge on treatment. These psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety among the barrens are very important and have a crucial role as well. On-time detection and evaluation of such disorders are effective in the successful treatment of infertility. Some variables can interfere and influence on psychological occasions, such as education, age and duration of infertility. This study aims to investigate depression and anxiety on couples with infertility.

In this study, 60 infertile couples were enrolled. Thirty couples with male factors and 30 couples with female factors. The study is a cross-sectional study carried out in the Amiralmomenin Hospital of Semnan, Iran in 2016-2017. Symptoms of psychological disorders were documented via questioner. Date were entered into SPSS software, version 23 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA), P<0.05 was significant.

We figured out that 15% of women and 13% of men had clinical depression. Severe anxiety was found in 30% of women and 6% of men. We found that there is a significant correlation between depression and duration of infertility in women but not in men. Whereas there is not any significant relationship between both of the disorders and level of education in the patients.

This study showed that depression level among half of infertile women and one-third of infertile men were more than healthy men and women. One of the reasons could be family problems and pressure to get pregnant. The psychological burden of infertility can affect the whole life of the infertile couple. Fear of an ambiguous future after infertility treatment failure, expensive treatment and its outcomes can be so annoying for many men and women. Most of these problems are hidden from the eyes of the treatment team. Take a deep look at what infertile women and men say showed that they need the support of their spouses, friends and family, the medical team and insurance services.