Knowledge and attitudes of infertile couples about assisted reproductive technology

Background: Knowledge of infertile couples about assisted reproductive technology is a fundamental parameter to optimize the infertility treatment and conduct it cooperatively. Objective: To evaluate knowledge and attitude of infertile couples about assisted reproductive technology we designed a descriptive cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: 400 infertile patients were investigated by a self- administered structured questionnaire about demographic data, infertility history, and several relevant variables in an out patient infertility clinic of a university hospital. The main outcome measurements included scoring the answers in the questionnaire regarding knowledge, and grouping the answers regarding attitude. Resulted data were analyzed in relation to patient’s gender and treatment history, and educational, ethnic and religious groups. Results: Of 400 cases (251 women and 149 men) 167 patients (41.7%) were scaled to have good knowledge and 223 patients (55.7%) had a poor knowledge about ART. 74.6% of patients with advanced education and 30.3% of patients without advanced education were scaled to be good in knowledge. 45.6% of men, 43.4% of women and 64.8% of patients with a history of passing previous ART cycles had a good knowledge. The source of information was mentioned to be the ART centers in 73% of cases. 95% of patients disagreed to have sperm or ovum donation or to undergo surrogacy. 22% of all patients (27.5% of women versus 12.1% of men) agreed with embryo reduction. 94.5% of patients mentioned the ART expenses not to be affordable readily. Conclusions: Less than half of patients presented to be knowledgeable about ART. Not a great portion of the patients agreed with sperm donation. ART expense is mentioned to be burdensome by nearly all of the patients.