[Emotional adjustment in infertile people]

ABSTRACT

Infertility has mental, social as well as reproductive consequences, among which depression, anxiety, aggressiveness, feelings of guilt, lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence, psychosomatic complaints, obsessions, relationship difficulties and sexual dissatisfaction are evident. Many authors consider the psychological consequences of infertility as responses to grief. The aim of this study was to assess emotional adjustment of infertile couples and psychological outcomes of infertility [depression, anxiety, relationship as well as sexual problems, and personality disorders] in different phases of treatment. The review of literature included most studies in the past 2 decades. Search terms were infertility, pregnancy, depression, anxiety, psychology disorder, marital satisfaction, psychiatric as well as psychology interventions and personality disorders in such data bases as Pub Med, Scholar, Google, Scopus and Amazon. All data were in agreement with articles published earlier than 2006 and almost all of them are accessible. Most studies have found that more than half of the infertile people [women, men, and couples] learn to some extent cope with this problem. High prevalence of psychological disorders [particularly, anxiety and depression] appears as inappropriate emotional adjustment which requires psychiatric and psychotherapeutic interventions: