JBRA Assisted Reproduction 2025;29(Suppl.2 SBRA 2025):199
Poster Presentation
29^th Annual Congress of the SBRA. São Paulo/SP - Brazil, 2025
doi: 10.5935/1518-0557.20263886

P-187. Psychotropic Drug Use Among Infertile Couples: Prevalence, Sex Differences, and Therapeutic Class Patterns

Gérsia Araújo Viana¹, Yara Viana Rodrigues da Silveira¹, Bárbara Souza Melo¹, Ana Cláudia Moura Trigo¹, Valentina Nascimento Cotrim¹, Liliane Carmen Souza dos Santos¹

¹ CENAFERT Centro de Medicina Reprodutiva – SALVADOR – BA – Brasil

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence, patterns, and associated factors of psychotropic drug use among infertile couples attending their first reproductive medicine consultation, and to explore possible associations with infertility duration.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted including 495 consecutive infertile couples (990 individuals) who attended initial reproductive consultations between 2023 and 2024. Data were collected from standardized medical records, including sociodemographic variables, infertility duration, identified cause(s) of infertility, and current use of psychotropic medications, classified by therapeutic class. The prevalence of psychotropic use was calculated for the total population and separately for women and male partners. Associations between infertility duration and psychotropic use were assessed using appropriate statistical tests, with significance set at p<0.05.
Results: The overall prevalence of psychotropic drug use was 7.8%, being higher among women (9.5%) than among male partners (6.1%). The mean age was 37.7±4.3 years for women and 40.1±5.8 years for men. Infertility causes were attributed to female factors in 34.3%, male factors in 33.1%, mixed factors in 13.1%, and remained unexplained in 19.4% of couples. Among women, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were the most frequent therapeutic class (38.3% of female users), followed by psychostimulants, and combinations with anxiolytics or other agents. Among men, psychotropic use was more evenly distributed, with SSRIs (13.3%), serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs, 10.0%), and unspecified anxiolytics (10.0%) as the most common categories. No statistically significant difference was observed in infertility duration between psychotropic users and non-users (p>0.05).
Conclusion: Psychotropic drug use was observed in a considerable proportion of infertile couples, with higher prevalence among women and a predominance of SSRIs in female users. The distribution of infertility causes was relatively balanced between female and male factors, and infertility duration did not appear to influence psychotropic use. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating systematic mental health evaluation and early intervention into infertility care, particularly for women, who presented higher rates of psychotropic medication use. Addressing mental health as part of the comprehensive management of infertility may improve patient well-being, treatment adherence, and potentially reproductive outcomes. Future research should investigate causal pathways between infertility and mental health disorders, and evaluate the safety and effectiveness of psychotropic medications in the context of assisted reproductive technologies.