Infertility and the seeking of infertility treatment in a representative population

Abstract

Objective: To investigate lifetime prevalence of infertility, the seeking of infertility treatment and outcomes of treatment.

Design: Cross-sectional postal questionnaire study.

Setting: County of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Subjects: Three thousand, seven hundred and forty-three women, 15 to 44 years old, selected at random were asked about infertility, their seeking of infertility treatment, diagnoses provided by their doctors and subsequent parenthood. Response rate was 78%, n = 2865. A random sample of non-responders was interviewed by telephone.

Main outcome measures: Fertility status, seeking of infertility treatment, subsequent deliveries and adoptions.

Results: Of the women who had attempted to have a child, 26.2% had experienced infertility; 4.1% of the women aged 25 to 44 years were currently primarily infertile and 8.6% had involuntarily not delivered a first child; 47.4% of the infertile women had sought infertility treatment. Significant predictors for seeking infertility treatment were school education > 9 years and not having delivered a child. Of the infertile women 54.9% subsequently had a child. Only 30% of these reported that the successful delivery was treatment-related.

Conclusions: The health care system should see to it that infertile couples from lower social classes are offered information on the possibility of infertility treatment. High quality infertility treatment has to include both the "supply" of taking care of the infertile couple's psychosocial strain and the goal of ensuring successful pregnancies.