title: Certain Less Invasive Infertility Treatments Associated with Different Levels of Pregnancy-Related Anxiety in Pregnancies Conceived viaIn VitroFertilization.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Research supports thatin vitrofertilization causes anxiety and that anxiety can continue into the resulting pregnancy. Most women who have IVF will have a less invasive treatment for infertility prior to IVF; however, it is unclear if specific less invasive treatment cycles impact anxiety that is experienced in the pregnancy resulting from IVF.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prospective study was conducted for women who became pregnant via IVF, and data was collected about reported previous non-IVF treatment cycles as well as Pregnancy Related Anxiety Measure. Latent Class Analysis was conducted A p-value of ≤0.05 was considered significant.
  
  
  RESULTS
  144 subjects participated and were highly educated, affluent, married, and primarily white. The LCA process yielded two groups that on average had similar levels on most items except for use of intra uterine insemination and/or ovarian stimulation. This information was used to generate four exhaustive and mutually exclusive groups: Stimulation Only (stim-only), Stimulation and Intra uterine Insemination (stim-IUI), Intra uterine Insemination only (IUI only), or No Treatment (No Tx). ANOVA found that those in the Stim Only group had statistically significantly higher PRAM scores than the Stim IUI (p=0.0036), the IUI only group (p=0.05), and the No Tx group (p=0.0013).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Women who become pregnant via IVF and had a history of non-in vitrofertilization cycles that only involved ovarian stimulation experienced more pregnancy-specific anxiety in the pregnancy that results fromin vitrofertilization.
authors.affiliation: Division of Health for Women, Children and Families, School of Nursing, Duke University, Durham, USA.
authors.forename: Eleanor Lowndes
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Stevenson
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sloane
keywords: In vitro fertilization; Infertility; Intra uterine insemination; Pregnancy anxiety; Stress