Home ovulation test use and stress during subfertility evaluation: Subarm of a randomized controlled trial
Sarah Weddell, Georgina L Jones, Sheila Duffy, Cameron Hogg, Sarah Johnson, William Ledger, Sarah Weddell, Georgina L Jones, Sheila Duffy, Cameron Hogg, Sarah Johnson, William Ledger
Abstract
Objectives: A prospective, randomized controlled trial in women seeking to conceive examined the impact of using ovulation tests on self-reported levels of stress, psychological well-being, and quality of life in women with unexplained infertility.
Method: The test group used a home ovulation test to detect the day of ovulation, whereas the control group were provided with a predicted day of ovulation based on the average length of menstrual cycle reported during study recruitment. Volunteers collected their first morning urine samples to evaluate biochemical levels of stress (urinary cortisol and estrone-3-glucouronide) and completed questionnaires over two complete menstrual cycles.
Results: Overall, the use of digital ovulation tests by sub-fertile women under medical care had negligible negative effects and no detectable positive benefit on psychological well-being, according to multiple measurements of stress by questionnaire and biochemical markers. No significant differences were found between groups for all stress measures at the various study time points, except in relation to "couple concordance" where the test group scored much higher than the control group (mean difference at end of study was 21.25 (95% confidence interval: 9.25, 33.25; P = 0.0015)). The maximum difference in log cortisol: creatinine ratio between the test and control groups was -0.28 (95% confidence interval: -0.69, 0.13).
Conclusions: These results do not support propositions that using digital ovulation tests can cause stress in women trying to conceive.
Keywords: cortisol; infertility; ovulation tests; questionnaire; stress; timed intercourse.
Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: S.W., C.H., and S.J. are employees of SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics Development Company Limited, which provided funding for this study. S.D. has no conflict of interest to declare. G.L.J. has received a grant from SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics Development Company Limited. W.L. is a Board Member of the Royal Hospital for Women Foundation and Flinders Fertility, he receives research support from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Merck, and Swiss Precision Diagnostics, and is a minority share-holder in Virtus Health.
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Source: PubMed