Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the fertility awareness, attitudes towards parenting, and knowledge about Assisted Reproductive Technology of Argentinian university students.Methods: This naturalistic, cross-sectional and quantitative study included the translation into Spanish of the Swedish Fertility Awareness Questionnaire; adjustments were also made to fit the questionnaire to local cultural norm. Through a snowball design using social media, university students were contacted in June 2019 and asked to complete an anonymous online self-report survey.Results: A total of 680 students (83.2% females and 16.4% males) aged 24.7 years on average (SD=5.6) answered the questionnaire. Approximately 70% believed they had high levels of knowledge about human reproduction; nevertheless, 46% thought that women could get pregnant in any stage of the cycle; 36.2% believed that fertility in women decreased between the ages of 45 and 50, 33.2% between the ages of 40 and 45, and 25.9% between the ages of 35 and 40 years. Half of the studied population thought that the chances of getting pregnant during the ovulation period ranged between 80-100%. In regard to age-related fertility decline in men, 57% believed that it simply did not happen. As to their desire to become parents, 58.3% stated that they planned to have children, and 50% said it was very important. The risk factors tied to infertility listed by the students were as follows: drug use (79.2%); aging (78.2%); smoking (69.2%); alcohol (66.5%); and sexually transmitted infections (43%).
Conclusions:Argentinian university students wrongly see themselves as knowledgeable about fertility. Interventions are required to improve awareness over fertility among university students in Argentina.
En 1978, el primer nacimiento producto de una fertilizaciónin vitro manifestó, entre otras cosas, la prescindencia del acto sexual para generar descendencia. Desde entonces, la posibilidad de disociar los componentes biológicos, genéticos y volitivos ha interrogado los esquemas que forman la base del parentesco occidental. En Argentina, el desarrollo de la medicina reproductiva fue acompañado de transformaciones legislativas sin precedentes, que ampliaron y consolidaron los derechos sexuales y reproductivos. Los procedimientos de alta complejidad, donde intervienen óvulos y/o espermatozoides de personas ajenas al proyecto parental, aumentaron con el correr de los años. De acuerdo con datos publicados por el Registro Argentino de Fertilización Asistida (RAFA) en 2017, de los 12.277 procedimientos, 3767 fueron realizados con ovocitos donados y se lograron 989 embarazos. La práctica de la psicología orientada en reproducción humana asistida se ha visto interpelada por nuevas demandas. Esta obra es una invitación a la reflexión acerca de los cambios y transformaciones que se registran en el campo biomédico en general, y sobre la donación de gametos en particular.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.