Psychological distress of Ghanaian couples after unsuccessful treatment for infertility

Objective: The main objective of the study was to assess psychological distress and to identify any gender specific differences in the psychological distress among infertile couples after one year of unsuccessful pharmacotherapy.

Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study.

Setting: The study was conducted in four fertility clinics in the Cape Coast Metropolis.

Participants: One hundred and twenty respondents (71 women and 49 men) were recruited by simple random sampling.

Statistical analysis: Statistical analysis was done using SPSS (v. 25). Psychological distress scores were presented as Mean±SD and were analysed using One-way ANOVA, followed by Bonferroni's post hoc test. Associations between exposures and outcomes were measured using relative risk.

Outcome measure: The main outcome measure was the level of depression, anxiety, and stress among infertile couples after unsuccessful pharmacotherapy.

Results: Anxiety was the predominant psychological distress experienced by respondents (60.8%), followed by depression (43.3%) and stress (37.5%). Generally, psychological distress scores increased with age among female respondents but decreased with age for male respondents. The duration of infertility only significantly affected anxiety (p=0.01) but not depression (p=0.51) and stress (p=0.06) levels. Approximately 31.7% of respondents reported experiencing extremely severe anxiety. Male respondents reported higher degree of depressive symptoms than females (46.9 vs. 40.8%).

Conclusion: Unsuccessful pharmacotherapy of infertility is associated with varied degrees of psychological distress among Ghanaian infertile couples, which can be affected by age, duration of infertility and gender.

Funding: None declared.