Effectiveness of a video-based education on fertility awareness: a randomized controlled trial with partnered women

Abstract

Fertility awareness (FA) among young people is low. Fertility awareness interventions have been found to contribute to increase FA in the short-term. The long-term effectiveness of FA interventions on childless and presumed fertile people, committed in a heterosexual relationship and wishing to have children in the near future is not known. In a double-blind parallel randomized controlled trial conducted between 2016 and 2018, 652 childless partnered women were randomized to either watch a 5-min video about fertility (IG: ‘Intervention Group’) or to not receive any intervention (CG: ‘Control Group’). Participants filled out an online questionnaire at the start of the study (and in the IG group immediately before intervention). They then completed the questionnaire after 1 month, 6 months and 1 year. The questionnaire assessed FA and intentions to adopt fertility-protective behaviours. In the IG, FA levels were found to increase at 1 month post-intervention. However, significant interaction effects between group and time were only found for four out of the seven FA variables at the 6-month and 1-year follow-up. No effects were found for: (i) intentions to adopt fertility-protective behaviours; or (ii) desired timing of pregnancy. These results suggest that the fertility video intervention seems to partially increase FA in the long term. Future studies should investigate the effectiveness of different intervention formats with a focus on overcoming high attrition rates.

Keywords:

• Fertility awareness
• video fertility education
• randomized controlled trial
• women
• reproductive health education

Trial registration

Trial registered at ClinicalTrails.gov: Couples Fertility and Pregnancy Awareness (CFPA) (number NCT02813993).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.: under the individual doctoral grant [SFRH/BD/103234/2014 to J.P.]. The funding agency has no influence on study design, data collected or results presented.