Evaluation of depression in infertile women using Beck and Hamilton test, Babol, 1999

Abstract

Objective: Infertility is one of the crises that can cause various mental problems such as depression that is stressful, but personal characteristics can influence the quality of response to infertility stress, which is important to be recognized in depressed infertile women. In order to study the incidence of depression in infertile women and comparing individual and socio-economic characteristics of depressed and undepressed infertile women who were referred to infertility center of Fatemeh Zahra (Peace upon her) of Babol in 1999, this study was conducted. Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive analytic study. 310 infertile women were selected from Jan. 1998 to Aug. 1999. We used questionnaires about personal characteristics, Beck and Hamilton depressive scales to obtain data. Findings: The incidence of depression in the infertile women was 50.6% (22.6% mild, 32.2% moderate and 4.8% severe). The average age of depressed infertile women was 26±6.1 and in undepressed group 27.1±6.1 years. The frequency of the following factors among severely depressed women has been higher comparing to other groups: Being a housewife, living in rural areas, low economic status, primary infertility and having the idea of considering infertility as a major problem in their family life. The severely depressed women were of lower educational level and have improper relationship with their husbands. 1% of infertile women had a history of suicide that was only observed in the depressed group. Conclusion: This study indicates that personal characteristics in the infertile women were different. Therefore, establishing counseling centers to identify them, to treat severe and moderate depressed women especially and providing a social support are important in physical and mental health.

Keywords

• depression
• prevalence
• infertile women