Fertility awareness and parenthood intentions among medical students in three European countries

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to investigate medical undergraduate students’ fertility awareness and parenthood intentions in three European countries, as well as possible differences across genders and countries.

Materials and methods

A cross sectional survey among 656 medical students in Sweden, Belgium and Greece. The utilised questionnaire comprised 23 questions.

Results

Three fourth of participants (n = 472/629) correctly stated that women are most fertile at 20–25 years of age. Approximately 91% correctly answered that women’s fertility starts to significantly decline before the age of 35, which differed among countries of participation. Social oocyte or sperm freezing was considered by 67% of Belgians, 49% Greeks, and 16.5% Swedes (p < 0.001). Approximately 95% expressed a wish of having a child in the future and the median age was 29 years for the first and 35 years for the last child.

Conclusions

Knowledge about fertility among medical students was in general satisfactory, albeit varying by country and gender. Medical curricula and social policies for childbearing should be respectively updated in EU countries suffering population growth.

摘要

目的：本研究的目的是调查三个欧洲国家医学本科生的生育意识和育儿意向, 以及不同性别和国家之间可能存在的差异。材料和方法：对瑞典、比利时和希腊的656名医学生进行横断面调查。使用的问卷包括23个问题。结果：四分之三的参与者(n = 472/629)正确地指出, 女性在20-25岁是生育能力最强的年龄。大约91%的人正确地回答了, 女性的生育率在35岁之前就开始显著下降, 这在参与的不同国家之间是不一致的。67%的比利时人、49%的希腊人和16.5%的瑞典人认可社会冷冻卵母细胞或精子(p<0.001)。大约95%的人表达了将来要孩子的愿望, 第一个孩子的中位年龄是29岁, 最后一个孩子的中位年龄是35岁。结论：尽管参与者的国家和性别有所不同, 医学生的生育知识总体上是令人满意的。在应对人口增长的欧盟国家, 应更新医学课程和社会生育政策。

Keywords:

• Fertility
• awareness
• knowledge
• medical student
• delayed childbearing
• planned parenthood
• parenthood intention

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank medical student Maria Tallberg, Michel De Vos (Free University Brussels), Petra De Sutter and Ann De Sutter (Ghent University) for their help with data collection and Alexandros Alexopoulos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) for his help with the coordination of the project and his efforts regarding survey distribution in the Greek study arm.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This project has been funded by grants from the Uppsala Region (Stavros I Iliadis; Grant numbers 19046/44728 and 464280759).