The relationship between occupational psychological stress and female fertility.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the association between occupational psychological stress and female fertility.


METHODS
This was a case-control study including consecutive working female patients attending fertility and in vitro fertilization clinics in the Soroka University Medical Center. We compared occupational stress between 64 working patients who had attended the clinics due to female infertility (case group) and 106 working patients who had attended the clinics due to their partner's reproductive impairment (control group).


RESULTS
Patients from the female infertility group were older (31.9 +/- 6.2 versus 30.2 +/- 4.6, P = 0.047) and tended to participate more in sporting activity [23.4 versus 10.4%, odds ratio (OR) = 2.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.05-6.73, P = 0.022] as compared with patients from the male infertility group. Patients from the case group tended to work more weekly hours as compared with the controls (33.6 +/- 16.8 versus 26.9 +/- 17.4, P = 0.028). High reliability was found, as demonstrated by Cronbach's alpha of 0.81-0.90 for the four burnout parameters. Patients from the female infertility group had significantly lower listlessness scores as compared with the control group, using the Mann-Whitney test (2.6 +/- 1.1 versus 3.1 +/- 1.2, P = 0.013).


CONCLUSIONS
Patients admitted due to female infertility tended to have lower listlessness scores as compared with patients admitted due to their partner's infertility problem. No significant association was found between other burnout, job strain and job satisfaction scores and women's fertility status.
Sheiner
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Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Soroka University Medical Center, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel. sheiner@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Sheiner
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Potashnik
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G
Carel
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Shoham-Vardi
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D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D007248:Infertility, Male / Q000523:psychology; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000150:complications; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016526:Workload