Infertility, social pressure, and mental health: An empirical study based on a reproductive sociology framework

Table 3 Social pressure scores by demographic characteristics, mean ± SD

Characteristics	n	Family pressure	Social pressure	Cultural pressure	Media pressure	Self-imposed	Total score
Gender
Women	749	3.68 ± 0.89a	3.32 ± 0.84a	3.45 ± 1.01a	3.02 ± 0.91a	4.28 ± 0.73a	3.78 ± 0.64a
Men	451	3.07 ± 0.87b	2.89 ± 0.89b	2.98 ± 1.03b	2.63 ± 0.94b	3.87 ± 0.81b	2.94 ± 0.71b
Infertility type
Primary	772	3.52 ± 0.91a	3.21 ± 0.87a	3.34 ± 1.02	2.91 ± 0.93a	4.21 ± 0.76a	3.48 ± 0.72a
Secondary	428	3.31 ± 0.92b	3.03 ± 0.92b	3.17 ± 1.08	2.79 ± 0.98b	3.96 ± 0.81b	3.22 ± 0.79b
Duration (years)
1-2	535	3.21 ± 0.88a	2.98 ± 0.85a	3.11 ± 1.01a	2.73 ± 0.92a	3.98 ± 0.78a	3.20 ± 0.71a
3-4	418	3.58 ± 0.91b	3.24 ± 0.87b	3.38 ± 1.03b	2.94 ± 0.94b	4.19 ± 0.76b	3.54 ± 0.73b
> 5	247	3.79 ± 0.94c	3.47 ± 0.93c	3.52 ± 1.09c	3.08 ± 0.99c	4.32 ± 0.79c	3.72 ± 0.77c

^aP < 0.05.

^bP < 0.01.

^cP < 0.001.

Values with different superscript letters within each column indicate statistically significant differences (P < 0.05) based on one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test. Values sharing the same letter are not significantly different from each other.