Psychiatric disorders in women with fertility problems: results from a large Danish register-based cohort study

Abstract

The study was supported by the Danish Cancer Society (award number: 96 222 54). All authors report no conflicts of interest.

Is infertility really associated with higher levels of mental distress in the female population? Results from the North-Trøndelag Health Study and the Medical Birth Registry of Norway

“…This finding is in line with one previous population study that assessed symptom levels of depression and general psychological distress in women with infertility [16], and it is consistent with the finding from the US study in which the weak association between infertility and levels of depressive symptoms became non-significant once adjusted for biological motherhood and other factors [19]. Furthermore, our finding is also in line with long-term follow-up investigations of samples of help-seeking women showing that women with unresolved infertility have levels of mental distress comparable with population norms [26,27] and with a recent Danish cohort study [28]. This study included n ¼ 98 320 women not previously hospitalized for mental disorders.…”

Female infertility, infertility-associated diagnoses, and comorbidities: a review

“…Rates of depression were elevated in four out of the six studies included in this review, while five of the six studies noted significant increases in diagnoses of anxiety or psychosocial distress in women with an infertility diagnosis. Many studies evaluating mental health are limited by the fact that psychiatric disorders may be underdiagnosed or treated in an outpatient setting and therefore excluded from evaluation when hospital admissions are used as inclusion criteria [5]. Based on the studies included, a majority of patients with subsequent mental health challenges appear to have a diagnosis of PCOS [1][2][3][4]6].…”

“…A main drawback of the Baldur-Felskov study was the fact that only inpatient hospitalizations were tracked, likely underestimating the true correlation between infertility and psychiatric disease. Importantly, the Baldur-Felskov study did note a significant increase in hospitalizations related to alcohol and drug abuse in the PCOS/infertile population [5].…”

“…See key findings in Table 1. Universally, authors concluded that women with a history of infertility or an infertility-related diagnosis, specifically PCOS, were at increased risk to develop mental health disorders [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Four out of the six studies that found correlations with mental health issues used women with PCOS as their primary population [2][3][4]6].…”

“…Results Female infertility and related reproductive disorders may have ramifications for women beyond reproductive health. An analysis of publications shows that women with infertility had higher rates of psychiatric disorders and endometrial cancer than the general population [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Data is conflicting about whether infertile women are at increased risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer [7,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”