Infertility and psychiatric morbidity

Objective

To assess the relationship between psychiatric disorders and infertility.

Design

Case–control study.

Setting

Fertile and infertile volunteer couples in an academic research setting.

Patient(s)

Eighty-one infertile couples recruited from an infertility center before fertility treatment and 70 fertile controls recruited from an obstetrics and gynecology clinic.

Intervention(s)

None.

Main Outcome Measure(s)

The presence of Axis 1 psychiatric disorders.

Result(s)

The occurrence of current psychiatric disorders was significantly higher among infertile subjects than among fertile controls, especially for adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood (16% vs. 2%) and for binge eating disorder (8% vs. 0).

Conclusion(s)

Our data highlight that a percentage of infertile patients have already developed a psychiatric disorder at the time of their first contact with a specialized fertility service. Possible applications are discussed, including the recommendation that gynecologists screen for clinical or subclinical psychiatric disorders in infertility patients and offer treatment accordingly.

Key Words: Female infertility, eating disorders, psychopathology in infertile subjects