Infertility linked to depression

Depression, anxiety and certain other mental health conditions are more common among infertile couples than those who are able to conceive on their own. To assess the relationship between psychiatric disorders and infertility, researchers from America studied eighty-one infertile couples recruited from an infertility centre before fertility treatment and 70 fertile controls recruited from an obstetrics and gynaecology clinic.While most of the 81 infertile couples did not suffer from any of the psychiatric conditions, they did have higher rates of certain disorders when compared with 70 fertile couples. The biggest difference, the researchers found, was in the diagnosis of adjustment disorder, particularly among women. Adjustment disorder refers to symptoms of depression and anxiety in response to an identifiable cause - which in these cases, was most likely patients' infertility.Among infertile women, 28 percent had an adjustment disorder marked by depression and anxiety, versus 3 percent of fertile women. In addition, 18 percent of infertile women had a coexisting binge-eating disorder, but none in the fertile counterparts. Among men, there was evidence that infertility patients had higher rates of subclinical obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia - meaning signs and symptoms of these anxiety disorders were there, but not significant enough for a diagnosis.However, it could not be established whether these mental health problems were the result of or possibly a contributing factor to the patients' infertility.In the case of adjustment disorders, it is likely that patients' symptoms were a response to their fertility problems. However, such symptoms could potentially make it harder for patients to recover from infertility; the effects of depression and anxiety on the nervous system, for instance, could in turn affect their reproductive function. The above findings imply that routine mental health screening could benefit patients being treated for infertility.

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