Effects of mindfulness-based intervention for women with infertility: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This review aimed to examine the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on physical and psychological outcomes in women with infertility. Studies were included if participants were women diagnosed with infertility, were over the age of 18, and the design was a randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based intervention program. Two independent reviewers undertook eligibility screening, data extraction, and methodological quality assessment. We used RevMan software version 5.4 (The Cochrane Collaboration) to conduct the meta-analyses. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) was followed. Ten articles were finally included in the current meta-analysis. The results of the meta-analysis revealed large, significant effects of mindfulness-based interventions that can effectively reduce depression[SMD = −1.28, 95% CI (−1.95, −0.60), P < 0.0001], anxiety [SMD = −0.89, 95% CI (−1.26, −0.51), P < 0.00001] symptoms, and improve five domains of health-related quality of life (physical function [MD = 9.47, 95% CI (4.33, 14.61), P = 0.0003], general health [MD = 15.77, 95% CI (7.62, 23.92), P = 0.0002], vitality [MD = 14.85, 95% CI (4.95, 24.74), P = 0.003], role-physical [MD = 22.44, 95% CI (14.97, 29.91), P < 0.00001] and social function [MD = 8.27, 95% CI (3.56, 12.97), P = 0.0006)] in women with infertility. The current meta-analysis results revealed that mindfulness-based interventions could effectively reduce depression and anxiety symptoms and improve health-related quality of life in women with infertility. Future rigorously designed, high-quality research is required to demonstrate whether mindfulness-based intervention programs can effectively reduce perceived stress and BMI.