Abstract
BACKGROUND: Potentially modifiable factors, such as the appropriate informing process given to infertile patients, can affect their infertility knowledge and information. This study aims to assess infertility information provided to Iranians who undergo assisted reproductive treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, participants recruited were a convenience sample of all infertile patients who received assisted reproductive treatments from Royan Institute, Tehran, Iran. Inclusion criteria consisted of: patient's first time visit, no previous infertility treatment failures, and referral to the centre between January and March 2015. A 20-item tool designed by researchers measured patient satisfaction with the infertility informing process. This tool included cause of infertility, type of recommended treatment, diagnostic procedures, approximate treatment duration, success rate of the treatment, approximate cost of treatment, and non-therapeutic factors in treatment success. RESULTS: A total of 235 infertile patients were invited to participate in the study, from which 200 (100 men and 100 women) participants completely responded to the questionnaire with a response rate of approximately 85%. The mean age of participants was 30.93 ± 5.56 years. In terms of satisfaction with information provided about the cause of infertility, male responders reported the lowest mean score of 3.59 ± 1.05 compared to female responders (3.82 ± 0.85, P=0.078). Infertile women had a greater mean score of 3.85 ± 0.78 than infertile men (3.58 ± 1.29) in satisfaction with information provided about the type of recommended treatment (P=0.037). There was a statistically significant difference between males (3.26 ± 1.04) and females (3.58 ± 0.93) in satisfaction with approximate treatment duration (P=0.031). CONCLUSION: According to the results, most infertile patients were satisfied with the informing process related to the cause of infertility and recommended therapies. Information about infertility should be provided more systematically to all treated patients by medical staff, especially in terms of success rate of treatment and financial cost of therapy.