ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1423418
Association of chronotype and depression symptoms in Chinese infertile population undergoing assisted reproductive technology
Provisionally accepted
Fei Jiang1Yuedi Jia2Xiaohuan Song2Mengli Zhu1Xin Wang2Guiying Luo3Jieyu Wang3Qianhua Xu3
Danni Wang2*- 1Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
- 2Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
- 3Reproductive Medicine Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui,, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: To evaluate the association between chronotype and depression symptoms in a group of individuals experiencing infertility and undergoing assisted reproductive technologies.This cross-sectional study evaluated the eligibility of 1022 infertile patients who underwent ovulation induction treatment at the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University Reproductive Medicine Center in China between August and October 2022. We obtained socio-demographic information by inviting patients who were experiencing infertility to fill out questionnaires. Furthermore, we evaluated the participants' chronotypes using the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ). Depression symptoms were evaluated using the validated Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and were expressed as PHQ-9 scores.The participants were classified into evening, intermediate, and morning chronotypes, accounting for 9%, 68%, and 22% of the total, respectively. There were considerable variations in levels of depression symptoms based on chronotype. Patients with morning chronotype had lower odds of depression symptoms (odds ratios = 0.32, 95% confidence intervals: 0.18-0.57), as did those with intermediate chronotype (odds ratios = 0.47, 95% confidence intervals: 0.28-0.77), compared to individuals with evening chronotype. Furthermore, there were no significant partner effects of chronotype on depression symptoms in male and female dyads (p >0.05 for both).The results indicated a significant association between individuals who have morning and intermediate chronotypes and a reduced likelihood of experiencing depressed symptoms. Further studies are required to assess the partner effect of chronotypes on depression symptoms.
Keywords: Chronotype, Depression symptoms, Infertility, Assisted Reproductive Technology, Cross-sectional study
Received: 25 Apr 2024; Accepted: 28 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Jia, Song, Zhu, Wang, Luo, Wang, Xu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Danni Wang, Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.