Stress of female infertility: relations to length of treatment

The psychology of infertile women was investigated with a battery of psychological tests consisting of a semistructured interview, State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and Cornell Medical Index (CMI). The subjects were 107 infertile women being treated for infertility. The semistructured interviews revealed that the stress factor for infertile women changes with the length of infertility. In the early states, the main stress is related to a physical inferiority complex, while later it changes into stress about what others outside the family say. According to STAI, CES-D and CMI, infertile women are considered to become more depressive the longer treatment persists. Therefore, counseling for infertile women should be adapted to long-term treatment.