Authors: Hadeel M. Muayad Abdulsaid, Khalid Mohyeldin Eltayieb, Yassir Ali Ahmed Idris.
Background: Having a lovely family was the trigger for a lot of couples around the world to seek assisted reproductive technologies (ART). However, failure may have devastating implications on couples, such as psychological distress, anxiety and depression. It has been recorded globally that 40.2% of ART clinics attendants had a psychiatric disorder.
Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional health facility-based study conducted in 6 infertility treatment centres in Khartoum in the period from October 2018 to December 2018. A simple random sampling technique was applied and a two-part questionnaire was used consisting of the socio demographic data and the second part was Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) standardized questionnaire. The data was analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) computer software to find the correlation between the various variables. Ethical considerations were maintained and ethical clearance was obtained from university of Khartoum.
Results: 102 women and 50 men participated in the study (response rate= 93%). According to HADS the prevalence of depression is 10.5% and 21.1% for anxiety, and it is lower than expected (lower than global statistics 17.0% for depression and 23.2% for anxiety). Reasons for that include the fact that couples have strong religious faith and effective self-counselling as well as family support. No significant association was found between sociodemographic information e.g. gender and psychological problems in term of anxiety and depression p=0.32, 0.72 respectively. On contrast there’s significant association between number of pervious trails and anxiety p=0.02.
Conclusion: Attention must be paid to the infertile patient visiting assisted reproduction clinics. It is recommended that facilities must improve counselling efforts so that depression and anxiety levels reduce more.
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