Psychosocial Adjustment, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in Pregnancy Following Assisted Reproductive Treatment and Spontaneous Conception

Abstract

Objective:This study aimed to determine the psychosocial adjustment, depression, anxiety, and stress levels between women who conceived through assisted reproductive treatment (ART) and women who were fertile and conceived spontaneously.Methods:This prospective, comparative, and descriptive study enrolled 69 women who presented to İstanbul University’s İstanbul Medical Faculty Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Department and conceived through ART between June 2015 and June 2016 and 139 women who presented to the antenatal policlinic for pregnancy. Data were obtained using the Personal Identification Form, Prenatal Self-Evaluation Questionnaire, and Depression, Anxiety, And Stress scale in each trimester.Results:The adaptation of spontaneously pregnant women (spontaneous group) was better than that of women who became pregnant by ART (ART group) in the first trimester. The psychosocial adjustment of all women to pregnancy was the highest in the second trimester, followed by the third and first trimesters. Infertility time, infertility treatment duration, number of ART attempts, duration of wanting to have a child, pregnancy loss experience, and cause of infertility did not affect pregnancy adjustment in all trimesters. In the first and third trimesters, depressive symptoms are more common in the spontaneous group than in the ART group. In the first and third trimesters, the anxiety and stress levels were higher in the ART group than in the spontaneous group.Conclusion:Psychosocial support programs should be organized for women who conceived through ART in infertility clinics. Moreover, routine pregnancy monitoring should cover the psychosocial evaluation of pregnant women, including adjustment, depression, anxiety, and stress.

Keywords

• psychosocial adjustment
• assisted reproductive treatment methods
• depression
• anxiety
• stress