Anxiety and depression among infertile women: a cross-sectional survey from Hungary

BMC Women's Health

Research Article

Judit F Szigeti¹  Péter P Ujma²  Enikő Lakatos²  Piroska Balog²  Réka Sexty³ 

[1] Department of Clinical Psychology, Semmelweis University, Tömő utca 25-29, H-1083, Budapest, Hungary;Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Nagyvárad tér 4, H-1089, Budapest, Hungary;Institute of Medical Psychology, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, Ruprecht-Karls University, Bergheimer Straße 20, D-69115, Heidelberg, Germany;

关键词: Infertility;    Infertility-related distress;    Depression;    Anxiety;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12905-017-0410-2

 received in 2016-12-13, accepted in 2017-07-19,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundInfertility is often associated with a chronic state of stress which may manifest itself in anxiety-related and depressive symptoms. The aim of our study is to assess the psychological state of women with and without fertility problems, and to investigate the background factors of anxiety-related and depressive symptoms in women struggling with infertility.MethodsOur study was conducted with the participation of 225 (134 primary infertile and 91 fertile) women, recruited in a clinical setting and online. We used the following questionnaires: Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T), Shortened Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Fertility Problem Inventory (FPI). We also interviewed our subjects on the presence of other sources of stress (the quality of the relationship with their mother, financial and illness-related stress), and we described sociodemographic and fertility-specific characteristics. We tested our hypotheses using independent-samples t-tests (M ± SD) and multiple linear regression modelling (ß).ResultsInfertile women were younger (33.30 ± 4.85 vs. 35.74 ± 5.73, p = .001), but had significantly worse psychological well-being (BDI = 14.94 ± 12.90 vs. 8.95 ± 10.49, p < .0001; STAI-T = 48.76 ± 10.96 vs. 41.18 ± 11.26, p < .0001) than fertile subjects. Depressive symptoms and anxiety in infertile women were associated with age, social concern, sexual concern and maternal relationship stress. Trait anxiety was also associated with financial stress. Our model was able to account for 58% of the variance of depressive symptoms and 62% of the variance of trait anxiety.ConclusionsDepressive and anxiety-related symptoms of infertile women are more prominent than those of fertile females. The measurement of these indicators and the mitigation of underlying distress by adequate psychosocial interventions should be encouraged.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017