Anxiety in couples undergoing IVF: Evidence from E-Freeze Randomised Controlled Trial
Published on Wednesday, 06 November 2024
We are delighted to tell you that the results of the E-Freeze Emotion study have now been published. This study looked at women's and men's anxiety levels during an IVF trial. The trial itself compared different timings for transferring embryos created using IVF into the womb, to see if the timing affected the chance of a successful pregnancy.
Why we did the study
The use of IVF treatment is rising and it is common for couples to feel anxious when trying to become pregnant through IVF. Also taking part in a randomised controlled trial may bring additional worries for the couple, such as not knowing which treatment group they will be assigned to, or concerns about a delay in treatment.
We wanted to find out what factors affect a couple's anxiety during IVF, and whether their anxiety levels influence their chances of becoming pregnant, or the chances of them staying with the treatment group they were assigned to in the randomised controlled trial.
What we did
We measured anxiety levels in 604 couples having IVF as part of the E-Freeze trial, which was carried out at 13 clinics in the UK from 2016 to 2019. In this trial, women were randomly assigned to either have a 'fresh' (immediate) embryo transfer or a 'frozen' (delayed) embryo transfer. We also asked both women and men how the IVF process made them feel.
What we found
Women having IVF were more anxious overall than their male partners, and they were more likely to be anxious if their male partner was also anxious. White women were more likely to be anxious than women from minority ethnic communities. Both women and men were more anxious at the time their embryos were implanted than when their IVF treatment started.
Women and men described a mixture of positive and negative feelings about IVF, with anxiety about the outcome being the most common negative feeling. Women had the extra worry of believing that feeling stressed might itself affect their chances of becoming pregnant through IVF. Men were also concerned about the emotional and physical wellbeing of their partners. Many women and men said they could manage their anxiety better when they had clear information about the entire treatment process and their choices, and when staff treated them with kindness and empathy.
Overall, being anxious did not affect women's chances of becoming pregnant through IVF, and it did not make them more likely to switch from delayed frozen embryo transfer to immediate fresh embryo transfer
You can read the full paper here.
The E-Freeze Team
Note: The main E-Freeze trial found no evidence to suggest that freezing all embryos followed by embryo transfer at a later date leads to a higher chance of having a healthy baby than having an immediate fresh embryo transfer. You can read more about the main trial here:
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