Emotional problems of Infertile Egyptian women

Abstract

Background: Infertility is a very stressful life experience where women may experience emotional distress, threat, depression, anxiety, phobia, disappointment and marital problems. Overall prevalence of emotional problems among infertile couples has been estimated to be around 25%-60%. So the aim of our study was to determine emotional problems among a group of infertile women in Egypt.

Methods: A convenient sample of 300 women was recruited for the purpose of this study. The study was implemented at infertility unit and Out–patient gynaecologic section at El-Kasr El-Aini Hospital Cairo university-Egypt. Structured Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection consists of two parts: Part I which included participants socio-demographic characteristics. Part II: A developed profile of emotional problems was used to assess the emotional problems of the infertile women in terms of anxiety, phobia, obsession, psychosomatic symptoms, depression, and hysterical manifestations.}

Results: Revealed that anxiety (83%) was the most significant emotional problems among studied subjects, followed by depression (77%), obsession (72%), psychosomatic disorders (65%), phobia (52%), and hysterical manifestation (2%). The levels of emotional problems had significant associated with subjects' age, level of education, duration of marriage and presence of children.

Conclusions: There are high prevalence of emotional problems among infertile women, the study yielded that causes of infertility were mainly related to female factors. Emotional problems of the studied subjects ranked descending; anxiety, depression, obsession, psychosomatic disorders, phobia, and hysterical manifestation. So, it seems that more serious attention is required from nurses, gynecologists, psychiatrists and psychologists for better treatment of these emotional problems. The use of supportive teaching program should be considered as part of the general therapeutic framework of infertility.