Ankara Medical Journal (Dec 2020)

Evaluation of Infertile Patients Who Attended to Medical Genetics Outpatient Clinic with Hamilton Anxiety Scale

  • Mahcube Çubukçu,
  • Özlem Sezer

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5505/amj.2020.39206
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 4
pp. 963 – 970

Abstract

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INTRODUCTION: Infertility is an important public health problem for our country due to its high frequency and problems experienced by infertile couples. The aim of our study is to evaluate the infertile patients with the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) who attended to Medical Genetic Outpatient Clinic of our hospital and to determine the relationship of the HAM-A with the socio-demographic characteristics. METHODS: 120 infertile patients of reproductive age who attended our hospital between 01.03.2020-01.07.2020 with unexplained infertility were included in the study. After the ethical committee approval, HAM-A, and a questionnaire containing socio-demographic data were applied to the patients whose informed consent was obtained. The point scale used for the study was shown as follows; 0-5 points for anxiety, 6-14 points for minor anxiety, 15 points, and above for major anxiety. SPSS 22.0 package program was used for analyzing the data. The data were evaluated with descriptive statistics as well as by Pearson chi-square and Mann-Whitney U test. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean age of 120 infertile patients was 33.94+-9.89 years. 55.83% of the patients were women. The mean infertile duration of the patients was 5.27+-3.64 years. The mean HAM-A score was detected at 20.13+-9.98 in women whereas 18.25+-8.80 in men. The mean score of the total scale was 19.44+-9.85. The total anxiety score was found to be higher in women with those who received infertility treatment previously, with forty years and older, low level of education, with chronic illnesses (in order p=0.002, p=0.000, p=0.023, p=0.001, p=0.003). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Severe anxiety was detected in infertile patients. All infertile cases attended to Outpatient Clinic should be evaluated with anxiety scales and optimum counseling and guidance should be provided to them.

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