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

Table 4 Mental health outcomes by gender and infertility characteristics, mean ± SD

Variable	Depression score	Anxiety score	Psychological distress
Total sample	3.42 ± 0.98	3.56 ± 0.92	3.49 ± 0.87
Gender
Women	3.68 ± 0.94a	3.82 ± 0.88a	3.75 ± 0.82a
Men	2.99 ± 0.92b	3.13 ± 0.87b	3.06 ± 0.81b
Infertility type
Primary	3.51 ± 0.96a	3.65 ± 0.91a	3.58 ± 0.86a
Secondary	3.26 ± 0.99b	3.40 ± 0.92b	3.33 ± 0.87b
Duration
1-2 years	3.18 ± 0.93a	3.32 ± 0.89a	3.25 ± 0.83a
3-4 years	3.48 ± 0.97b	3.62 ± 0.91b	3.55 ± 0.86b
5+ years	3.74 ± 0.99c	3.88 ± 0.93c	3.81 ± 0.88c
Treatment status
Active treatment	3.51 ± 0.97a	3.65 ± 0.91a	3.58 ± 0.86a
No treatment	3.19 ± 0.95b	3.33 ± 0.90b	3.26 ± 0.85b

^aP < 0.05.

^bP < 0.01.

^cP < 0.001.

Within each variable category, means with different superscript letters are significantly different (P < 0.05) based on one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test. For example, in the Duration category, the 1-2 years (a) and 3-4 years (b) groups did not differ significantly from each other but were both significantly lower than the 5+ years (c) group, indicating a significant progressive increase.