Psychiatric Co-Morbidities in Couples With Infertility At A Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background: Infertility is more prevalent nowadays and affects both males and females. It is an extremely challenging and unpredictable situation with social, interpersonal, and financial consequences. Therefore, it affects psychological health and quality of life of the couple. We assessed psychiatric morbidity and quality of life among couples and the relationship of duration of infertility with psychological burden, along with comparison between primary and secondary infertility. Methodology: 75 couples attending a tertiary care hospital in the age range of 18-45 years fulfilling the criteria for infertility and consenting for the study were interviewed and DASS 21 and WHO-QOL BREF was applied to analyze depression, anxiety, stress, and quality of life. Patients with previous psychiatric illness, intellectual disability was excluded. Results: The mean age of males and females was 29.6 years with 75% couples of primary infertility and 25% of secondary infertility. Females showed a higher range of psychiatric morbidity than males with 56% females and 12.2% males had depression, 56% females and 18.1% males had anxiety, 88% females and 66.7% were stressed. The data was clinically significant for anxiety in males and for stress in both males and females. QOL had scores on the lower side with non-significant association between primary and secondary infertility. Conclusions: Infertility has an impact on psychological health, and it affects females more than males. It also impairs QOL of the couple and hence there is need for an integrated approach to reach favorable outcomes.