The status of depression and anxiety in infertile Turkish couples

BACKGROUND Infertility is a major psychosocial crisis as well as being a medical problem. The factors that predict psychosocial consequences of infertility may vary in different gender and different infertile populations. OBJECTIVE The primary purpose of this study was to investigate whether Turkish infertile couples had higher levels of depression and anxiety when compared to non-infertile couples. Our secondary aim was to evaluate the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and levels of depression and anxiety in Turkish infertile couples. MATERIALS AND METHODS We designed a descriptive cross sectional study of 248 infertile women and 96 infertile men with no psychiatric disturbance and 51 women and 40 men who have children to evaluate the depression and anxiety levels between infertile couples and fertile couples. A gynecologist evaluated participants for demographic data and then they were visited by a psychologist to perform questionnaire scales which were The Beck Depression Inventory and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for the evaluation of the degree of psychopathology. The data were statistically analyzed, with p<0.05 as the level of statistical significance. RESULTS We observed significant differences between the infertile couples and fertile couples with respect to state and trait anxiety (p<0.0001) while no difference was regarding with depression, both of women and men. Anxiety and depression were observed as independent from gender when infertile women and men were compared (p=0.213). CONCLUSION We believed that the psychological management at infertile couples must be individualized with cultural, religious, and class related aspects.