03-01-2024 | Infertility | Gynecologic Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine
Evaluation of infertility counselling in Germany
Authors:
Thorn Petra, Tewes Wischmann, Birgit Mayer-Lewis
Published in:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics
|
Issue 3/2024
Login to get access
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reports on the first evaluation of infertility counselling in Germany.
Methods
Sixty-nine infertility counsellors provided feedback via 524 survey sheets and 182 questionnaires were filled in by clients.
Results
The results show a high level of satisfaction on behalf of the clients. They valued the emotional support, information, and exploration of family-building options with and without medical assistance and the counsellors’ expertise. During counselling, coping with the emotional burden of infertility was an important issue, but in more than half of all counselling sessions, future parental issues were addressed. The group of clients seeking support can be described to be very heterogeneous, and counselling issues comprise a wide range of aspects.
Conclusions
This piece of research suggests that the following issues need to be considered to improve infertility counselling.
-
Better integration of counselling in infertility clinics, more awareness for infertility counselling for other medical and non-medical professions
-
Better funding for counselling so that its uptake is not dependent upon the financial resources of clients
-
Awareness for new groups of clients and counselling issues such as single and transgender individuals, co-parenting families
-
There is a need for more research and the development of counselling concepts.