ABSTRACT
Background: Infertility rate is on rising trend. It is often associated with a chronic state of stress which may manifest itself in anxiety-related and depressive symptoms. Also, the affected family faces social discrimination, ostracism and stigma which leads to increased anxiety or depression among infertile couples. The motive of this study was to assess the quality of life among infertile couples; to determine the relationship between various domains of quality of life of infertile couples i.e. emotional, mind/body, relational, social, environmental and tolerability and to determine the association of levels of quality of life of infertile couples with the selected variables visiting IGIMS.Methods: This was a cross-sectional based study; carried out in the department of reproductive medicine, IGIMS, Patna, Bihar for one-year duration (January 2017 to December 2017), on 122 infertile patients attending outpatient department for treatment. Data was collected by using self-administered questionnaire i.e. Ferti QoL questionnaire and HADS.Results: Among all these 96 cases was found to be suffering from primary infertility and 26 cases from secondary infertility. In primary infertile patient social domain was the most affected domain having the greatest impact on their quality of life. In secondary infertile patients the tolerability domain was the most affected domain having the greatest impact on their quality of life. The total fertility quality of life score in primary infertility patients showed a lesser quality of life (55.41) than secondary infertility patients (66.29).Conclusions: This study points at the necessity of specific psychological interventions, presently absent from the public healthcare routine, for women struggling with infertility, to help them manage potential mental health problems and meet their reproductive goals.
ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the Fertility Quality of Life (FertiQoL) among patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion,analyze the relationships among perceived stress,psychological distress and FertiQoL,and further examine the mediating effect of psychological distress on relationships between perceived stress and FertiQoL.Methods This survey included 213 patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion from Center for Reproductive Medicine of Shandong University,which were investigated by questionnaires including FertiQoL,the Perceived Stress Scale,and the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale.Results The total Core-FertiQoL score was (62.02 ± 14.41) points,which included four subscales as emotional,mind/body,relational and social and scored (60.01 ± 19.51),(64.28 ± 21.65),(66.57 ± 14.53),(67.57 ± 17.35) points,respectively.Perceived stress was positively associated with anxiety,depression (r =0.544,0.629,P＜0.01) and were negatively associated with FertiQoL and its four subscales (r=-0.522--0.285,P ＜0.01),and anxiety,depression was negatively associated with FertiQoL and its four subscales (r=-0.541--0.250,P＜0,01).Furthermore,Bootstrap-generated 95％CI was-0.74--0.14,P=0.003 and did not include zero,which indicated that psychological distress significantly mediated the relationship between perceived stress and FertiQoL.Conclusions Perceived stress and psychological distress could affect FertiQoL of patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion and psychological distress could mediate the relationship between perceived stress and FertiQoL.Medical staff should pay attention to not only the stress management of patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion,but also the intervention of psychological distress to improve the FertiQoL.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To investigate psychological distress and fertility quality of life (FertiQoL) in infertile Korean women, and to investigate whether a correlation exists between psychological distress and FertiQoL. METHODS: Participants in this study were made up of 141 infertile women and 65 fertile women. We conducted a survey on psychological distress (using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales [DASS]-42 questionnaire) and administered a FertiQoL questionnaire. The levels of stress hormones (adrenocorticotropic hormone [ACTH] and cortisol) in serum were assessed. RESULTS: The scores for depression (13.7±8.4), anxiety (10.7±6.4), and stress (18.0±8.3) among the infertile women were significantly higher than the scores for depression (9.4±7.5), anxiety (6.6±6.0), and stress (12.2±8.3, p<0.001) among the fertile women. There was no difference in the scores for depression (13.5±8.2, 13.8±8.6), anxiety (10.0±6.2, 11.5±6.6) and stress (17.7±8.4, 18.4±8.1) between younger (≤34) and older (≥35) participants. The mind-body (r =–0.495) and emotional (r =–0.590) subscales showed a higher negative correlation with stress compared with other scales of psychological distress. At the same time, the social (r =–0.537) and relational (r =–0.385) subscales showed a higher negative correlation with depression. Levels of cortisol and ACTH in infertile women were 9.1 µg/mL and 11.9 pg/mL, respectively, which are within normal ranges. CONCLUSION: The levels of psychological distress and quality of life in infertile Korean women seem to require psychological intervention. This study provides a baseline measurement of psychological distress and FertiQoL in infertile women in Korea, which will be available for developing psychological interventions for infertile Korean women.