Psychological morbidity and the availability of assisted conception: a group comparison study

Given its limited availability, it is worth while to explore the relationship between the non-availability of assisted conception and psychological morbidity among subfertile women, to see if those denied the procedure experience poorer health.

A non-randomized group comparison study was carried out in Bradford Health Authority, England. Sixty-six women who had reached the point at which assisted conception was deemed appropriate, but for whom such treatments were not available, were compared with 49 parous women, and 73 newly diagnosed subfertile women. The General Wellbeing Index (GWI) was used to measure their psychological wellbeing.

Cases and subfertile controls have similar levels of wellbeing, whereas parous controls have significantly higher average levels than cases. This pattern is seen in the simple unadjusted comparison and also when adjustments are made for the distributions of age, life event score and social class.

Subfertile women experience poorer psychological health than similar parous women. Subfertile women, for whom assisted conception is an appropriate but unavailable treatment option, appear to have similar psychological health to those who are being investigated and treated by other means.