Depression and Anxiety Among Men Undergoing ART Treatment

Abstract Objective: This prospective longitudinal study aimed at assessing the psychological status, especially depression and anxiety across different phases of ART treatments in subfertile men. Methods: During January 2016 to December 2018, 1248 fertile couples were recruited to participate in the prospective study. The Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used to evaluate the presence of mental health problems in both husbands and wives at the day of initiation, oocyte retrieval and embryo transplantation respectively. Clinical pregnancy is defined as the presence of at least one intrauterine gestational sac with ultrasound assessment after a positive human chorionic gonadotropin assessment.Results: In total, 1248 infertile couples undergoing ART treatment participated in this prospective study. The clinical pregnancy rate was 42.4% in this study. The subject with SAS score ≥ 50 was classified as anxiety and SDS ≥ 53 as depression. The incidence of male anxiety and depression in the three assessment points in pregnant group were 8.48%, 8.07%, 8.07% and 9.04%, 8.90%, 10.71% respectively; In the nonpregnant group, the corresponding data were 9.75%, 6.05%, 10.02% and 6.43%, 6.99%, 9.07% respectively, and there was no significant difference between the two groups (P > 0.05).Conclusions: Although the SAS and SDS scores were higher in the nonpregnant group than those in the pregnant group, there was no statistical difference in the incidence of anxiety and depression between the two groups, and we concluded that male anxiety and depression are not closely associated with the ART clinical pregnancy rate.