SALT LAKE CITY – Self-reported psychological distress and biological markers of stress did not affect the chances of pregnancy after in vitro fertilization, according to a single-center prospective cohort study of 186 women.
Rates of ultrasound-confirmed pregnancy were 36% among first-time IVF recipients and 30% among women undergoing their third round of IVF, and did not differ based on self-reported depressive symptoms, stress, anxiety, or serum levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), cortisol, or interleukin-6, Maria Costantini-Ferrando, MD, PhD, said at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Nonetheless, IVF recipients reported more depressive symptoms than oocyte donors did, especially after a negative pregnancy test, reported Dr. Costantini-Ferrando, a reproductive endocrinologist in Englewood, N.J.
“Patients undergoing IVF do experience real psychological distress. The efficiency of IVF in controlling the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axes may overshadow any deleterious effect of heightened stress, but it will not eliminate patients’ experience of it,” she said.
Patients need support and follow-up to help lessen the psychological burden of treatment and decrease drop-out, she said.
Women in the study were aged 22-44 years, and the IVF recipients had a mean age of 37 years. In all, 75 women (40%) were first-time IVF patients, 29% were undergoing their third cycle of IVF, and 31% were oocyte donors. Among the IVF recipients, 22% were in psychotherapy, and 4% were on psychotropic medications. None of the women had other medical comorbidities. Patients were assessed at baseline, time of oocyte retrieval, time of embryo transfer, and on the day of the pregnancy test.
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Patients with infertility reported significantly worse depressive symptoms at baseline compared with oocyte donors, with average Beck Depression Inventory scores of 11, compared with 2.3 (P less than .01). This difference persisted at the time of vaginal oocyte retrieval. First-time and third-time IVF recipients tended to have similar Beck Depression Inventory scores until pregnancy testing, when the average scores of third-time recipients increased by about five additional points.
Scores on the daily stress questionnaire echoed these findings. Patients who were receiving IVF reported significantly more stress than did oocyte donors, with the highest increase at the time of the pregnancy test among patients with previous IVF failures. However, both recipients and donors reported mild to moderate anxiety based on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Dr. Costantini-Ferrando said.
All groups had low interleukin-6 levels when starting IVF, but donors had the highest levels of both ACTH and cortisol. Levels of these hormones dropped over time, and then rose at the time of pregnancy testing. That trend suggests that IVF was an acute “procedural” stressor for both recipients and donors, but that the magnitude of the stress response lessened somewhat over time with repeated exposure to the stressor, Dr. Costantini-Ferrando noted.
“The complexity of this interaction may explain why it is difficult to elucidate the true impact of stress on IVF outcome,” she said.
Ultimately, these findings support a shift in focus, she added. Instead of asking if stress decreases reproductive potential, clinicians and researchers can instead explore how to address psychological distress to maximize reproductive potential. “This is important to keep patients engaged in infertility treatment and facilitate the difficult process of decision making during treatment,” she added.
The paper won a prize from the ASRM Mental Health Professional Group.
The National Institutes of Health provided funding for the study. Dr. Costantini-Ferrando reported having no relevant financial disclosures.