Psychosocial factors discriminate oligozoospermic from normozoospermic men

Abstract

Objective To compare the profile of psychosocial variables in a group of oligozoospermic and normozoospermic men for assessing the hypothesis of a relationship between impaired seminal status and psychosocial factors. Design Double-blind investigation of the psychosocial differences between oligozoospermics and normozoospermics. Setting Healthy volunteers in a clinical environment. Patient(s) Two hundred eighty men attending their first seminal examination. Intervention(s) We selected 37 oligozoospermic patients on the basis of sperm concentration and 37 normozoospermic controls for comparison. Main outcome measure(s) Differences in alexithymia (difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, externally oriented thinking), personality traits (extroversion, neuroticism, psychoticism), and coping style toward stressors (task-oriented coping, emotion-oriented coping, avoidance-oriented coping) were assessed in the two groups. Result(s) Wilk’s Lambda (.79) of the discriminant analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups. The following variables met the inclusion criterion in the discriminant function: psychoticism and difficulty describing feeling. This analysis also showed a high probability of correct classification of oligozoospermic men on the basis of the psychosocial variables. Conclusion(s) The relationship between psychosocial variables and seminal status has been confirmed in a group of oligozoospermic and normozoospermic men.