Moderate or severe depression is uncommon in women seeking infertility therapy according to the beck depression inventory

To determine what percentage of infertility patients have depression.

The Beck Depression Inventory test was given to new infertility patients on a voluntary basis.

There were no women with moderate or severe depression. In fact only 10% (3/30) scored mild depression. For those women without or with minimal depression 37% (10/27) conceived on their first cycle vs none (0/3) of those with mild depression.

The numbers with mild depression were too small to make valid conclusions. However, this group had a significantly longer length of infertility. Thus even if a more extensive study shows similar data it may well be that the length of infertility causes only mild depression rather than that depression leads to infertility. However the possibility still exists that even mild depression may to some degree impair success with infertility therapy.