Silent battles, global insights: anxiety and depression in the world of assisted reproduction.

Purpose This study aims to summarize and analyze the existing research on anxiety and depression within the field of assisted reproduction technology, exploring current hotspots, emerging frontiers, and trends, while offering insights for future research directions.

Relevant literature on anxiety and depression among assisted reproduction patients was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection up to December 31, 2023. The analysis, encompassing studies, countries, authors, institutions, keywords, and co-citation networks, was visualized using VOSviewer version 1.6.19 and the “bibliometrix” R package version 4.3.1.

A total of 1458 studies were included in the analysis. The literature on anxiety and depression in assisted reproduction patients has shown a fluctuating upward trend. Human Reproduction was identified as the leading journal, with the highest citations across multiple journals. Boivin J emerged as the most prolific author, with Cardiff University contributing the most publications. The USA and China led in terms of both publications and citations. Highly cited studies were predominantly published between 1995 and 2007, with half of the included studies published before 2000. Key research hotspots included evidence synthesis, acupuncture treatment for infertility, and the mental health of patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology, particularly focusing on anxiety and depression.

As awareness of psychological health in assisted reproductive technology continues to grow, future research should focus on mitigating anxiety and depression to enhance patient outcomes and patient quality of life. Integrating psychological support and monitoring long-term psychological outcomes are crucial for optimizing assisted reproductive technology success and fostering holistic, patient-centered care. Similar content being viewed by others Data availability Data are available in a public, open-access repository. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Helpful comments by anonymous reviewers are acknowledged with thanks. Author information Authors and Affiliations Contributions Yongjia Zhou: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, software, formal analysis, visualization, project administration, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Qingyong Zheng: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, software, formal analysis, visualization, project administration, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Caihua Xu: data curation, software, validation, writing—review and editing. Yiyi Li: data curation, software, validation, writing—review and editing. Tengfei Li: data curation, software, validation, writing—review and editing. Lin Li: formal analysis, visualization, writing—review and editing. Li Wang: visualization, writing—review and editing. Jinhui Tian: conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, supervision. Guangmei Xie: conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, supervision. Corresponding authors Ethics declarations Ethics approval The data sources for this study were taken from publicly available databases. Ethical approval was not required to be obtained for this study. Consent for publication Not applicable. Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing interests. Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer-reviewed. Additional information Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary information Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material. ESM 1 (download PNG ) (PNG 144 KB) ESM 2 (download PNG ) (PNG 238 KB) ESM 3 (download PNG ) (PNG 305 KB) ESM 4 (download PNG ) (PNG 151 KB) ESM 5 (download DOCX ) Supplementary file5 (DOCX 3.50 MB) Rights and permissions Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. About this article Cite this article Zhou, Y., Zheng, Q., Xu, C. et al. Silent battles, global insights: anxiety and depression in the world of assisted reproduction. J Assist Reprod Genet 42, 1317–1329 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-025-03422-8 Received: Accepted: Published: Version of record: Issue date: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-025-03422-8